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Today in Priesthood meeting, we had a typical conference lesson on marriage from Elder Uchtdorf. After moving to the ward 3 years ago, and getting in a little hot water for some less than orthodox comments, I have tried to lay low and comment infrequently. One of my good friends is a former stake pres. I discovered he’s a bit of a Mormon history fan, and we’ve been to lunch a few times to talk Mormon history. He was recently released as YM pres, and is attending priesthood again. He noticed that I don’t say much in priesthood meeting and encouraged me to speak up. Today I did so, and I’m not sure what to make out of it.
A few people started with the similar tropes about how terrible it is that people get divorced, and that we have such a high divorce rate. My SP friend is a lawyer and had mentioned representing someone in a divorce case and the judge denied the divorce. He was pretty shocked. Anyway, the rest of the people gave the same familiar tropes, about how awful divorce is (and I agree that it is), and what a shame it is to get an easy “no fault divorce” now and how that didn’t happen in “the old days.” They seemed to imply that easy divorce was a bad thing.
But I told them that in the days of Brigham Young, the Territory of Utah (Deseret) had the easiest divorce laws in the nation. All you had to do was say you wanted to come to Utah and join the Mormons and Utah would grant the divorce. It was even advertised in the eastern newspapers. I mentioned that Brigham Young had a famous “wife #19” that divorced him and lectured against polygamy across the U.S. and Parley P Pratt had married a woman who wasn’t legally divorced and her ex-husband killed Pratt.
I mentioned that of course Mormons didn’t encourage divorce, but on the other hand, if a husband and wife weren’t getting along, the leaders were pragmatic and felt it was better to get a divorce than to keep fighting while living together. If a woman wanted a divorce, she was generally granted it in Utah. (it was tougher for the man to divorce.) The feeling was that it was better to be sealed to someone you were compatible with than sit through a miserable marriage. It was actually due to the polygamy prosecutions that the federal government forced Utah to tighten up its divorce laws to match the rest of the country, and I referred to this as the “protestantization of Mormonism.”
The teacher was like a deer in headlights. He said, “moving on….” and continued on with the lesson. I wasn’t surprised. I sat there and thought “I should have kept my mouth shut.”
However, my SP friend came over after the meeting and said he had never heard that and asked for more info on it. Another man, recently released Branch Pres at the MTC told me he was intrigued by my comment. I still wonder if I should speak up. I told my SP friend that we needed to go to lunch again, and he agreed we can do it sometime next week. I’m wondering if I’m going to get in trouble again, but this is the first time I’ve had any sort of support for giving a non-orthodox response. I’m not sure if it was a success or a failure. I’ll probably try to stay quieter next week anyway, just to play it safe.
Here’s some quotes from the book “More Wives Than One” by Kathryn Daynes that talk about divorce in polygamist Utah, if anyone is interested. I forwarded it to my SP friend, but I haven’t heard back from him yet.
https://mormonheretic.org/2009/11/15/economics-of-polygamy-divorce-and-happiness-daynes-part-4/ Interesting. I also sit in class and wonder when it make sense to “correct” issues. I do sometimes, but I try not to be “that guy”. gospeltangents wrote:
However, my SP friend came over after the meeting and said he had never heard that and asked for more info on it. Another man, recently released Branch Pres at the MTC told me he was intrigued by my comment. I still wonder if I should speak up. I told my SP friend that we needed to go to lunch again, and he agreed we can do it sometime next week. I’m wondering if I’m going to get in trouble again, but this is the first time I’ve had any sort of support for giving a non-orthodox response. I’m not sure if it was a success or a failure. I’ll probably try to stay quieter next week anyway, just to play it safe.
I get the complements all the time with my unorthodox statements. Never been censured except once when a guy started shaking his head at me, but it wasn’t an unorthodox comment, I didn’t think, just something on which members disagree. I had no investment in my own comment…
Our HPGL mentioned that he likes my comments in class because I make the quorum think — told my wife that.
The key is to not go off on unorthodox stuff that has to do with core doctrines. If you can back up what you say with solid research and preferably GA comments, that helps. One thing that helps too is echoing what everyone thinks and does, even though it goes against the on the surface culture. I once made a comment in a home teaching lesson that one reason people don’t do home teaching is that the reporting system doesn’t take into account the agency of families. You can contact every one and get only 20% HT on your list, and then there is often censure for it from the stake or even local leadership. I was visiting in a Ward at the time I said that, so it wasn’t taken as an attack against the leaders. I ended with “if that’s what I have to look forward to the rest of my life, no wonder it can be difficult to get up the gumption to go out every month”.
A member of the SP joined in and supported me, and then the rest of the quorum started making similar comments about deficiencies in the program.
Afterwards someone thanked me for opening up the discussion.
I also gave a pretty lengthy commentary on the conscription model of service. I didn’t call it that, but countered and ex-Bishop’s statement that a woman came in with a list of 10 things she was willing to do in the Ward after refusing a calling. The whole quorum laughed at his description of her behavior. He followed up with “that’s not the way it works in the Lord’s church!!!”.
I commented that I wanted to provide an alternate perspective — that the woman was giving the Bishop valuable information about where her passions lay — about how the BP could get the most from her. That we are not just filling slots, we are here to help others fulfill the mandate of happiness. How we ask people to donate their spare time influences their personal happiness. Putting people in callings in which they have no interest, skills, or passion, when there are better callings suited to their personalities and skills can create unhappiness. I can hurt the ward, mute happiness and moreover, isn’t effective.
There was a long silence…and then a member of the SP indicated “yes, and when you put people in non-fitting callings, they don’t function, and then you have to figure out how to release them tactfully”.
The discussion leader looked uncomfortable and didn’t know what to say, but later told my wife he likes my presence in the quorum due to my comments. A man at the end came up and told me he appreciated everything I said.
So, I’m not afraid to take a stance on non-doctrinal issues. Must make sure you have other supportive, main stream comments in areas you can speak about with authenticity so the landscape of your comments is largely positive and not antagonistic…
The fact is BY did divorce several of his polygamous wives. In other words, BY was our most divorced Prophet. The Church, and religions in general, struggle with the concept of opposites. I don’t know why. Human nature, I guess. If there was a Christ, there must be an Anti-Christ. Successful marriage and family is a wonderful thing for those who can find it. So, the Church finds the “opposite” (divorce) and labels it as the anti-successful-marriage-family. The reality is that people who divorce are not headed toward a successful marriage/family.
In a broader sense, we want to become more like God, so the best way our puny minds can think to do that is to AVOID what God doesn’t have: SIN. So, with lots of our teachings, it is the AVOIDANCE OF SIN and the REPENTENCE FROM SIN that we seem to be after and I always argue that we cannot become like God by virtue of what we are not.
And so, with divorce, of course we don’t teach that divorce is what God would want for us, but avoiding divorce doesn’t make us Godly. We have to be prepared in this life to work within our reality. And if our reality is a broken marriage that brings mostly anguish, then divorce is a viable and pragmatic way to get back to a course that can lead to our purpose: (“…and (wo)men are that they might have joy.”)
I recall a lesson on anger. I was disappointing because rather than discuss coping strategies we acted like the very act of getting angry was giving in to the devil and that the solution was….. to not get angry
Basically lots of platitudes, almost no practical application.
gospeltangents wrote:
The teacher was like a deer in headlights. He said, “moving on….” and continued on with the lesson. I wasn’t surprised. I sat there and thought “I should have kept my mouth shut.”
That’s pretty much every time I open my mouth in Sunday School. Eventually I’ll forget, make another comment, and be reminded why I keep my mouth shut.
I’m not saying anything controversial. What you said… you probably have more social capital than I do but I wouldn’t have felt comfortable taking the discussion as far as you took it. Nothing wrong with your comment, this is just me putting emphasis on the fact that I’m not trying to rock any boats.
I find it’s more related to the environment. All it takes is a few loud voices that feel it is their duty to police discussions. People that take a little price on being the voice of authority for the church.
I know a few nuanced people, or people I suspect are nuanced, and there have been several Sundays where I know the lesson that’s coming up and I look forward to hearing from them during the lesson, or maybe even sparking off a discussion myself that I hope they’ll back me up on… but what I notice is that those types leave after SM. They aren’t there to have those discussions and I think it’s because they don’t believe that the environment is welcoming enough to hold those types of discussions. It’s a catch 22. The environment doesn’t exist without them. They don’t stay because the environment isn’t there.
gospeltangents wrote:I mentioned that of course Mormons didn’t encourage divorce, but on the other hand, if a husband and wife weren’t getting along, the leaders were pragmatic and felt it was better to get a divorce than to keep fighting while living together. If a woman wanted a divorce, she was generally granted it in Utah. (it was tougher for the man to divorce.) The feeling was that it was better to be sealed to someone you were compatible with than sit through a miserable marriage. It was actually due to the polygamy prosecutions that the federal government forced Utah to tighten up its divorce laws to match the rest of the country, and I referred to this as the “protestantization of Mormonism.”
ahhh…the good ole days of the church…
…oh wait
:shifty: What I love about your comments, GT, is that it helps remind people how different our views of marriage have been…it isn’t like our faith hasn’t gone through our own set of issues on this topic…one should remember that when we talk about how to strengthen families…and stay humble about it.
Progress?? Well…in some things, for sure. Not so much in other things. A mixed bag, as Ray likes to say.
Overall…anything moving away from polygamy is progress, divorce is not the issue…it is a benign thing as a choice on the underlying issues facing families.
As for divorce…it’s a tough one for me. Having gone through my dark times to struggle through how to make sense of it and feelings in our church about how it is looked down upon…{shrug}…it is what it is. I would likely have walked out of such a lesson. but I have often found people in our ward know it is something to be sensitive about because so many families deal with it. I have found support by many, even if we struggle on issues of strengthening families.
When our priesthood covered that topic…my comments were about how to focus on this part of Pres Uchtdorf’s message…and not focus on divorce which just has so many various scenarios … we can’t judge others…but we should focus on this:
Quote:Whatever“Charity never faileth.”
I think it was an unqualified positive. I think the responses you got from key leaders show that unequivocally. Yes, I would be careful how often you share similar comments that might sound . . . cynical, maybe . . . to others – but it put you solidly into the camp of “knowledgeable about church history”, and that can serve you well, if you don’t overplay it.
Yes Ray, I agree, which is why I will probably try to keep a lower profile next week. I wish you were in our ward Online wards are often better than in person wards. I feel like this is becoming my ward:) Honestly, I wish I had found this site 5 years ago when we were deviants in a larger family ward – they didn’t know what to do with us, and my DH did not like the people. We were only there for 10 months though, which might have been part of it.
An update. I talked to my friend yesterday and asked what he thought about the BY divorce quotes. He said he was surprised that I was able to back them up! I guess He thought I was blowing smoke in priesthood meeting! I asked if he wanted to borrow the book the quotes came from.
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