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Kirby’s Sunday column talked about shortening the three hour block as individuals. That’s a good point, we can make the block whatever we want it to be as individuals and families. I suppose if one were only interested in taking the sacrament church could be 15-20 minutes – less if you skip announcements and business. FWIW, my wife seems to like to extend the block but that’s another story. 
Anyway, in the midst of making his point, Kirby listed a few examples of past changes which he attributes to non-cooperation.
Quote:Some of you may find this inappropriate, or even sacrilegious, but the truth is that this is how most changes are accomplished in the church. For you, here’s a bit of interesting news.
The chaste hemlines you see in church today didn’t get there on their own. Heavenly Father didn’t decide to make a fashion change out of the blue. No, hems came up as cooperation went down.
This is also true of other changes, including those made to the previous split-meeting schedule, hairstyles, full-length garments, missionaries no longer having to wear fedoras, and Primary in the middle of the week.
Look, if people are uncooperative, changes will come. So might floods, pestilences, frogs, destroying angels and famine, but some things are worth bucking the odds.
I’m not sure if all of those changes were indeed because people simply quit complying but they could have been. You could probably throw things like shorter endowment sessions in the pot because those things were done to entice more people to come to the temple more often.
On any given Sunday in my own ward about a third of the men are wearing shirts other than white. But it’s always the same third of the men, which does include people who hold stake callings. Some of our YM wear colored shirts and are permitted to participate in the sacrament (likewise for adults because we don’t have enough YM). But I don’t know that this is bringing about a change – less than two years ago a bishopric member gave a talk about wearing white shirts. And FWIW, in the ward I often visit which is much larger almost every male wears a white shirt.
So my questions: Does or will “voting with our feet” or simple non-compliance or passive resistance bring change to the church? If the majority (or a sizable minority) voice our opinion that we’d be happier with a two hour block and just stop coming for the third hour, will a two hour block become the result just because three hours would become futile? (In my own case it’s the second hour I dislike more than the third but if I thought it’d be effective and DW would let me get away with it I’d sacrifice the third hour.)
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/kirby/2018/07/22/kirby-you-can-chop-three/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/kirby/2018/07/22/kirby-you-can-chop-three/ Short answer, no. Many people do that already.
I think that the membership can nudge for changes, but it takes quite a large percentage and it takes enough people willing to speak up. I have come to believe that there are only a few folks with butts in pews in church are really wanting any change. They may have a few shelf items, but the shelf is secure and day to day they like the church.
The culture generally pushes “follow the leader”, so the latter can be hard even when the membership wants a change.
But one that Kirby didn’t mention is the ban on oral sex. That only lasted about 2 weeks (officially at least, unofficially it hangs on in some locations). Diet coke is another one.
In the Church, the inactives don’t matter when it comes to Church policy. And leaving meetings early puts you on the semi-active list. In fact, depending on how the Bishop interprets question 8 of the temple recommend interview, skipping out on meetings could disqualify you (and has for some); that further takes away from your legitimacy as a faithful member who’s opinion “matters”, as far as Church leadership is concerned. The trouble is, the religious follow their religion religiously. New ideas, change, going against the status quo is apostasy for anyone who doesn’t have the right ” keys & authority”. To make things worse, the Church has gotten too big to fail. If people stop coming, or stop paying tithing, or take any other action to enact change, the worst that would happen to the Church is a reorganization of ward boundaries. The “Apostates” on the other hand, will either be ignored or excommunicated.
Skipping out on meetings will do nothing but… get you out of those meetings. But maybe that’s good enough reason in itself.
The Church doesn’t want your input and does not seek it. This stands in contrast to JS times, when ward and branch conferences were used to gather and then submit policy items for consideration. This still happens today in the RLDS/CoC Church. These filter up to their World (General) Conference where items are voted upon by their body. Although I don’t love this idea, because I think it takes spirituality in a political direction, I do lament the fact that people in our Church have no essential say in anything. Sure, we can vote with our feet, but that vote is not counted. If a bishop sees that I’m not there one day, he will assume I’m even less plugged in than I am now. In other words, any ‘counting’ of my not being there is offset by the fact that not being there makes me of less consequence. For example, as I’ve mentioned before, our Bishop stood on Mothers Day to give glowing (condescending/patriarchal) praise to the women of the Church and the important “role” of women. I’m normally pretty thick-skinned regarding off-kilter comments like this, but I couldn’t take it. I leaned over to my wife and mentioned I was going to head out. She understood, though she stayed. So, I got up, and walked out the door during the Bishop’s remarks. I know that he isn’t concerned, because he hasn’t reached out, in any way, to see if I’m OK or if I want to discuss gender topics.
Having said all this, I think it’s important to realize that everything one of us might find in need of changes is not universal for all of us or for members in general. There was great fanfare about wear-pants-to-Church-day a few years ago. For me, I just didn’t care. For one, I don’t mind getting dressed up a little. I’m in a minority I guess. I recently went to the theater and was dismayed to find that I was nearly alone among men wearing jackets and ties. For another, I think that a Church services is about the worst possible venue for a protest. We had a thread awhile ago about wearing a cross to LDS Church services. I wouldn’t be a fan of that, because I think it is too contrarian. I sometimes do wear a cross on special occasions, but I do so under my clothing, since it’s a matter of my conviction, not anyone else’s.
dande48 wrote:
Skipping out on meetings will do nothing but… get you out of those meetings. But maybe that’s good enough reason in itself.
I have no illusions about my actions changing church policy unless I were part of a much larger movement. However my own decisions of staying with selective non-compliance brings two benefits. 1) I do not have to comply with certain expectations that I find onerous. 2) My staying makes the church have to continue to acknowledge/deal with me. Just my very presence may keep the rhetoric from getting too extreme.
I vote with my mouth – and I only can do that if I don’t vote with my feet. I understand completely that some people have to vote with their feet in order to be happy and healthy, but I am not one of those people. Therefore, I vote with my mouth.
I love Kirby, this time I disagree. Think of all the mass resignations that have happened. Nothing changed. No policies were reversed. No public pronouncements around problematic issues were given. Crickets. As the daughter of a woman who changed policy, inside works better than outside. My mom and other Stake YW Presidencies wrote, verbalized, nudged and prodded against the new block program when it’s initial roll out included no mid week anything. In Utah & Idaho that was fine. Everywhere else it would result in loss of youth.
When they first began to plead for a change, the answer they received was “The Prophet has spoken.” But as more and more got on board, the powers that be realized the value of the concern. Initially the change was a simple letter stating that local areas could have a mid-week/mid-month night for youth if it felt best. Pretty soon the tide turned to re-instating mid week events for youth. In all fairness, I think we went too far. We have more things to attend than ever before. But it was people inside that made the difference.
Garments, as I understand it, was largely due to physicians, nurses, first responder’s. Yes that’s an outside group, but it wasn’t from a lack of people wearing the one piecers. It came from the medical and rescue people getting massive Mormon backlash from TBMs when their garments were cut or ripped off for treatment during an emergency.
Now I do believe the hemline and length of women’s garment sleeves and legs was from fashion changes that needed to be addressed. Again though,it wasn’t from leavers. It was from stayers.
My vote is stay. Work patiently. Rigidity and boldness doesn’t topple the leadership.
mom3 wrote:
I love Kirby, this time I disagree. Think of all the mass resignations that have happened. Nothing changed.
I completely agree with mom3. Well said.
If you want change in the church you have to stay and fight for it.
If you want personal change, you just follow your heart which may mean leaving and it doesn’t matter what the church does.
Change won’t happen spontaneously.
We have many of our congregation that come with jeans and tee shirts and tattoos.
Those need to be seen often in our pews.
When some people see dissenters leave they think we’re being winnowed/sifted. I don’t agree but that’s how I think. We used to have a member – now moved away – who has a skill with words I envy. He could get an alternative POV over well without hurting or offending people. Sometimes it’s needed. I am not sure if Kirby is actually being literal in “voting with your feet”. Did people quit the church over hems? Did missionaries resign due to having to wear a fedora? I think not, there were probably verbal objections — some offered in the presence of leaders who then saw there was WIDESPREAD DISCONTENT.
I have led successful political action campaigns against government before, and he first thing you learn is that you can’t be harping on an issue that only you care about. It has to be a law, practice, rule or policy to which a lot of people openly object — and in the case of the church, the more traditional believers the better. And in my opinion, it can’t be an organized objection either (think, Kate Kelly). It was to be widely dispersed with individual members disagreeing.
I can think of another one — at one time leaders were asking if you (had oral sex) in worthiness interviews. It seems like it was for only a short period of time, but I think there were objections to asking that question — either from lower ranking leaders or members themselves.
And that’s another thing — I have seen corporations reverse policies because the leaders who have to implement such policies disagree. So, there may well be feedback from leaders who are uncomfortable implementing certain rules and policies. It’s hard in our church to object to “inspired direction”, even though it’s not clear what is inspiration and what is just a few men’s best guess about how to proceed.
SD, I don’t remember being asked if I had oral sex during worthiness interviews. Who had oral sex during worthiness interviews that caused that question to be asked? 😆 😆 😆 😆 (Sorry. My inner editor couldn’t help it.)
I get it — 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 There was a brief period when it was happening. I have read stories about it, and this was before the internet. The leaders stood down on that one pretty quick.It was the wording. Your sentence structure reads as if the oral sex was occurring in the interviews. (“were asking if you had oral sex in worthiness interviews,” as opposed to, “were asking in worthiness interviews if you had oral sex.”) 
Sorry to post and run, things just got busier than I expected. I do agree that such things as skipping the third hour, especially as an organized effort, is probably not going to bring change (and would probably get the organizer ex’ed). However, if we look at the bigger picture change does seem to come as a result of long term trends. Take the three hour block. I was baptized shortly after the change. It was recent enough (less than 2 years) that people still talked about it – some loved it, some hated it. The only other active member couple in the little town I live in still talk about it from time to time. They lived here during that time and before our ward/branch existed. At that time we were part of a ward 30 miles away (some people were farther). SS was in the morning (around 11 to accommodate farmers as I recall them saying) and SM was in the evening (I think 6, but it may have been 5). That meant that the choices were to spend two hours driving every Sunday (to go there twice) or to go there once and hangout between meetings. The third option was to skip one or the other. This couple (with their young children at the time) usually chose to stay – they’d pack lunch ad hang out at the church building with others who also stayed or sometimes go to a park or something. If they went home they usually didn’t come back. Their observation was that about half of the people did one or the other meeting (sacrament was offered at both), usually the morning meeting, especially the farmers who were home doing afternoon milking during the later meeting. Was the three hour block a solution to poor SM attendance? Undoubtedly it increased SM attendance and probably attendance at other meetings, too. Could it be said that at least part of the reason for the change was in improve attendance/participation? Again, undoubtedly. There was no organized rebellion there, it’s just the way things were as the church was growing outside Utah where it wasn’t an hour or more round trip to the meeting house.
Another example, not cited by Kirby. The missionary age change. There are way more missionaries now than before the change, especially sisters. While I think the statistic is that about 40% of returned missionaries are inactive within two years, I think that stat is higher for the same age group who did not serve missions. And sisters, especially, often did not go on missions because they married or became “unworthy” before reaching 21. While I don’t have stats to prove it (but I think the church does), I believe there is a net gain in active members who reach leadership age (late 20s/early 30s) over what it was before the age change.
I do disagree that the church does not care about less actives. I think the top leadership is very concerned about the bleeding, especially of young people because they are the future leadership (we can’t complain about old guys running the church if that’s all there is). I know it’s kind of comparing apples and oranges, but I don’t think we can say that because local leaders (and whole wards) tend to ignore inactives (and I have personally experienced this) that the church doesn’t care even if the only reason they care is because of statistics. I actually think both of the above examples show the church does care, and even the changes to ministering could be a move to improve interaction with inactives.
I do believe that church HQ notices that there are fewer people third hour than there are first hour, the question is how concerned with that they are. These rumors didn’t come out of nowhere, but they have been around for a while.
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