Elder Snow: Why Essays Are Not Publicized

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

SilentDawning wrote:

I haven’t been asked to teach priesthood since then. perhaps I crossed the line. The good news is that I’m not sad about it

😆

Shortly after the Race and the Priesthood essay was released an opportunity to share the essay in my ward presented itself during PH. Somehow the discussion turned into discussing the familiar justifications for the ban. Someone even shared an experience where divine intervention prevented an ordination. The perfect opportunity to share:

“Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.”

But the tone of the class… I got the feeling that it wasn’t the right time. I guess you had to be there.

That’s because that statement goes so against the grain of what so many have been taught and accepted as truth. Then all of a sudden the church is saying (without saying) Joseph Fielding Smith (the prophet) and Bruce R. McConkie and many others were wrong and you were taught wrong. Many in that room probably taught some iteration of at least one of those theories about why Blacks couldn’t hold the priesthood. It can be a tough pill to swallow.

[Anonymous]

Time will tell, but a recent Mormon Stories episode I listened to 2/3 of, highlights the problems with not having some sort of blanket understanding of how this information is to be used and viewed. It’s an Elder Tesch whose whole story I won’t tell, but he had gotten to the point with about six months to go where his literal beliefs were gone and he was concentrating only on service. He didn’t spread his thoughts around. He was asked to write a summary at his exit interview – or whatever it’s called – three weeks before his departure. He was honest. The MP read it and said he’d have to get back to him. When he did, he said he would be dishonorably released – three weeks early! – for being in a state of apostasy. The elder explained that he had been keeping this to himself and wasn’t a danger to those around him. MP made him place a call to his parents in his presence and say why he was being released. Then home and now completely inactive.

I don’t think things like this would be happening if the essays were more familiar. And MP’s of all people need to make room for the faith transitions that will occur in the Internet age when you’ve got virtually nothing to do with your extra time but study!

[Anonymous]

That was hard to hear. My kids tell me that their MP’s tend to still be more on the harsh side. I feel for them a bit with trying to keep 200 crazy 18-22 year olds from causing mayham. But as you point out, this Elder says, “I can’t say I believe” and he is summarily kicked off his mission with a dishonorable release status which causes his family to nearly disown him. Now he is hitchhiking across the US. So sad for him. Interesting that his advice to anybody on a mission that has a FC is “don’t say a think about it.” That isn’t good for mental health.

[Anonymous]

Ann wrote:

Time will tell, but a recent Mormon Stories episode I listened to 2/3 of, highlights the problems with not having some sort of blanket understanding of how this information is to be used and viewed. It’s an Elder Tesch whose whole story I won’t tell, but he had gotten to the point with about six months to go where his literal beliefs were gone and he was concentrating only on service. He didn’t spread his thoughts around. He was asked to write a summary at his exit interview – or whatever it’s called – three weeks before his departure. He was honest. The MP read it and said he’d have to get back to him. When he did, he said he would be dishonorably released – three weeks early! – for being in a state of apostasy. The elder explained that he had been keeping this to himself and wasn’t a danger to those around him. MP made him place a call to his parents in his presence and say why he was being released. Then home and now completely inactive.

I don’t think things like this would be happening if the essays were more familiar. And MP’s of all people need to make room for the faith transitions that will occur in the Internet age when you’ve got virtually nothing to do with your extra time but study!

I am thoroughly disgusted with the actions of the MP, assuming that the elder is telling the full story. I will go forward believing he has. This is because I can imagine something like this happening. It shows how harshness and judgmentalism do prevail among many of the leaders. To send this young man home in shame shows short-term thinking, a breach of trust, and a lack of kindness and compassion.

Although I loved my own MP, he did one thing I didn’t approve of. We had one missionary, an ex-companion of mine, who was problematic his last two months of his mission. He and his companion stopped proselyting and sat out on the porch of their apartment in Lava Lavas and bare chests — no garments. They got a television. They were not receptive to correction or change. And they lived with a second set of missionaries who were living the rules.

The mission president denied him a TR to go to the temple at the end of his mission. I happened to be at the mission office that day, and missionaries were coming and going, and asking my companion why he wasn’t at the temple with his outgoing missionaries…..I walked in, and I could see the utter look of shame on my ex-companion’s face. He was totally embarrassed seeing me, and as I sat in the waiting area, explaining himself to all the other missionaries who were asking why he wasn’t at the temple. The MP came out and my companion pleaded with the MP to go to the mission home to wait out the temple excursion.

Even though he was not obedient, this missionary was my friend. He had experienced a transformation during the time we spent together, and eventually became a senior companion for a while. He had baptisms, but then he fell into disobedience at the end of his mission.

Although I don’t fault the MP for denying a TR (I wasn’t in the interview, and my mission president was generally a very kind person), I thought this was harsh for the MP to shame the missionary this way. Perhaps the MP didn’t empathize, or perhaps he was afraid my ex-companion would do something that would require discipline if left alone. But I still remember that look of utter shame on his face due to the public humiliation. I felt deep compassion and significant surprise at the firmness and stoic reponse my MP gave to this missionary’s request.

These are experiences, like the one Ann described, that make me feel an incredible lack of pride in our leaders. And it is why I have much greater inner peace believing that we have some great features, our church, but in the end, we are much like any other temporal organization. Even if there is divine direction at the top, much of the water does not reach the end of the row. I guess that is the price of free agency.

[Anonymous]

I do think there is pride (and other things like misunderstanding), but for many like the Elder Tesch story I see a huge part is fear. I know I was brought up in the church with a framing of anti-mormon or losing your testimony were automatically allowing the devil to have control of you. So I was taught that disbelief is just like a cancer. Cut it out and isolate it at all cost.

I like what was at Wheat and Tares http://www.wheatandtares.org/21781/talking-about-prescription-v-description/” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.wheatandtares.org/21781/talking-about-prescription-v-description/. It is somewhat easy to see A problem, but figuring out what the right way is to fix it is significantly harder.

The MP saw a problem (not disagreeing with that), but what he did had a risk of alienating that missionary from the church.

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