Church Surveys

[Anonymous]

I blogged about this earlier this week. There have been quite a few Church surveys recently that I think are pretty interesting for telling us where Church leaders’ heads are. This is the post, and it includes the questions asked: https://wheatandtares.org/2021/06/23/church-survey-on-women-stuff/

A few impressions:

– They seem to know what many of the topline issues are for women: modesty culture, unequal sealing policies, Mother in Heaven, LGBTQ stance, number of women speakers, sexual intimacy teachings, family planning talks.

– They are lumping a few other issues in there like the priesthood ban (without mentioning the temple ban that directly affected black women in the Church).

– The solutions they hint at seem all parity-focused without actually grasping the underlying issues. (e.g. talk to men about fatherhood more than priesthood)

– They seem kind of obsessed with discovering how much people’s concerns align with their *political* or secular feminist views (e.g. equal opportunity, hiring, etc.)

– They outright ask if respondents are feminists, which makes me suspicious of their motives.

In the comments, so many people talked about their unwillingness to trust the Church with these surveys, that they fear that if they reply, there will be repurcussions and lack of confidentiality. Very interesting, and I don’t think the surveys promise confidentiality. Did any of you get this survey (I didn’t get this one)? Do you answer them when you get them?

[Anonymous]

First impression after reading through the list of questions… you sure that survey is real? Like commissioned by the church real and not faked by an exMo, because the questions seem a little too on the nose.

I’ve heard that a survey preceded removing penalties from the endowment. In fact that survey was even posted somewhere online not that long ago. Surveys can make a difference. That said, I don’t know how much hope to place in the more recent surveys.

We do surveys at work and one year the survey showed clear areas where the employees had concerns but since some other random question also received poor marks the company went all in on solving that “problem.” The real problem was that no one cared about that issue, they cared about the issues that were going ignored. Surveys like that should probably have a companion question to each question asking, “How important is this issue to you?”

hawkgrrrl wrote:

In the comments, so many people talked about their unwillingness to trust the Church with these surveys, that they fear that if they reply, there will be repurcussions and lack of confidentiality. Very interesting, and I don’t think the surveys promise confidentiality.

That alone is more revealing than anything they’d discover in the survey results.

hawkgrrrl wrote:

Did any of you get this survey (I didn’t get this one)? Do you answer them when you get them?

I’d fill it out if I got one, but I didn’t get one. It’s hopeful that church leaders care about what some people think. I’m still firmly of the opinion that no one at church cares what I think… and that’s probably for the best.

[Anonymous]

After reading the survey, I do think that the decision makers would be more likely to take notice if people that answered the first belief questions in the TBM manner later expressed concerns with other areas (Modesty teachings, LGBTQ+ treatment, etc.). This is not to say that the survey responses from people of “wavering faith” are thrown out. Just that I believe that someone somewhere correlates the data to prioritize the concerns of people that are otherwise fully invested in the church. For example, “The top concern among people who answered all the belief questions in the affirmative was the XYZ issue.”

This reminds me of President Hinckley’s comment that women in the LDS church are not calling for priesthood ordination.

I once had an interesting conversation about female priesthood ordination with a fairly open minded female member. She said that she herself would not want priesthood ordination but she understands why some other women might want it. I proposed how that same sentence might sound different coming from me – that I myself do not want priesthood ordination but I understand why some other men might want it. The implication for women is that to want priesthood ordination is to covet or aspire to something that is not theirs by right or privilidge. For men, priesthood ordination is an privilidge, right, responsibility, and expectation. For a man to say that they do not want that comes across as lazy and irresponsible. I imagine that it would be somewhat analogous to a father saying that they do not want the role of “provider and protector.” That man would be seen as a “deadbeat” parent. (incidentally, I believe that LDS men who may choose to be stay at home dads because they are the more nurturing parent in the couple are looked at askew in LDS culture and society [even more so than would be the case in society at large]).

I imagine it would be quite unusual for a LDS female survey respondent to identify that they are 100% believer but also want priesthood ordination just because they have been taught that to want it in and of itself is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

I imagine that it would be somewhat analogous to a father saying that they do not want the role of “provider and protector.” That man would be seen as a “deadbeat” parent. (incidentally, I believe that LDS men who may choose to be stay at home dads because they are the more nurturing parent in the couple are looked at askew in LDS culture and society [even more so than would be the case in society at large]).

Yes. My husband was given a harder time in Priesthood Meetings because he stayed at home with our children.

NOTE: My husband also expected to have a harder time in those meetings – so it might be partially self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think that he was also given the stink eye because I wasn’t pushing him back into the workforce to “do his duty” and I am known to be unconventional and forthright.

[Anonymous]

This wheat and tares blog post was featured in the Salt Lake Tribune.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/07/01/latest-mormon-land-church/

I did find myself wishing that the SLT had done some follow-up research (to ask a church spokesman about the surveys or find someone that had received a survey and could provide a copy or to contact Hawkgrrrl for additional information). As it was, I felt that it was all second hand information. As if to say, “this blog says that the church did something.” Having not worked in the news business, maybe I am being unrealistic about the amount of time available to research fairly innocuous and mundane story lines.

[Anonymous]

All other things aside, I believe the church leadership is sincere in wanting to understand the membership and how they see things.

I went to the temple last week for the first time in a long time – and the endowment is extremely different now than it was even a few years ago. Even some things that I would say are important doctrinally are different now. I believe the primary impetus for much of the change came from surveys and other forms of internal evaluation.

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