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A friend of mine asked me today what I thought about the church’s news release today. I was also surprised it made national headlines. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Cedar wrote:Anyway, I was just wondering what people thought about these news stories, and what it means for the Church. Will it just get people riled up for a few minutes, but not have much impact overall, or will it have a more lasting negative impact on people’s perception of the Church?
I singled out a few questions to comment on but the whole post was an excellent series of thoughts.
I believe only time will tell. I’ve seen a few of my more orthodox friends both share and comment on the NY Times article. They were unanimous in stating that none of the things mentioned in the essays were new; most comments were in the spirit of “move along, nothing to see here” or “we knew all this already, so this shouldn’t trouble you” – even though they led with this statement, no one had mentioned that they were troubled yet.
Many other posts gave what are now the more standard justifications for some of the issues that people find more troubling, people marrying when they were 14 was common back then, etc. Some that took the more defensive positions mentioned that they hadn’t read the essays.
But that’s one side. It’s going to be difficult for a person that is beginning to question or worry about the implications to post their thoughts in that kind of environment. Many people in that camp are probably doing what I would have done, silently ponder outside of public forums.
The “truth” vs. the “truth” debate was coming to a head. I think that further delays in addressing the subjects in the essays would have had more of a lasting negative impact than actually releasing the essays. To the point, I believe that leaders making that determination is exactly why we have the essays. The generation(s) that were lead to believe a different narrative than what is related in the essays may very well be a write-off, but the hope is that the rising generation will have a more open leadership guiding them. This may have to be the case in the information age.
I think the leadership would do well to directly address how it is perfectly okay and even understandable that these issues may be troubling to some members… for people that were affected directly
andtheir families that may not see anything wrong with the information in the essays but see everything wrong with their loved one that does. They may even consider apologizing, for years of attempting to disparage people that were indeed telling the truth, for casting more accurate representations of church history as anti-Mormon half-truths and casting less accurate representations as full truths. I realize that there’s no one person to blame, but perhaps we could borrow from the lessons in the temple and leadership could offer a vicarious apology for people that have been negatively impacted in any way by any member of the church over these issues. People considered to be on the “wrong” side of this decades long debate really, truly need to be ministered to.
To be clear, I do not feel like I am
owedan apology nor do I feel anyone is owedan apology. My suggestion that an apology might be in order follows more out of leading by example. If leaders apologize it may help members that may have put these issues before family apologize. It can help with the repentance process on both sides. A friend of mine taught GD on Sunday and read the communication from the church about the topics section on LDS. org. He asked how many people knew about the essays there, in a class of 40, the number of people who had heard of any of these essays….0. I told him I wasn’t surprised, but I don’t think a lot of people know about them. And even if they are aware the essays exist, I doubt many people have read them.
“Many other posts gave what are now the more standard justifications for some of the issues that people find more troubling, people marrying when they were 14 was common back then, etc.” But it wasn’t common. Not at all. Average age for women to marry was 22, and the average age of menarche was 16.7, meaning girls younger than this were often pre-pubescent, unlike today. hawkgrrrl wrote:“Many other posts gave what are now the more standard justifications for some of the issues that people find more troubling, people marrying when they were 14 was common back then, etc.” But it wasn’t common. Not at all. Average age for women to marry was 22, and the average age of menarche was 16.7, meaning girls younger than this were often pre-pubescent, unlike today.
Preaching to the choir. You could point out that only 1% or fewer of all marriages involved 14/15 year olds, you could point out that the 14/15 year olds were marrying people closer to their own age, etc. Starting those discussions really isn’t going to change people’s minds. Just reporting what I’m hearing. The vocal appear to be largely unphased. But again, I’m sure people that feel otherwise may be too timid to speak up in that environment, much like asking questions in SS… you have the feeling that questions will be met with accusations not discussion, so you keep your thoughts to yourself.
Quote:But again, I’m sure people that feel otherwise may be too timid to speak up in that environment, much like asking questions in SS… you have the feeling that questions will be met with accusations not discussion, so you keep your thoughts to yourself.
Yeah, from my experience, as soon as someone brings up any doubt or asks any hard-hitting questions that might be interpreted as doubt, most of the time it seems the teacher will give a quick half-answer, and then the rest of the class or discussion is spent on people bearing testimonies — instead of a logical, fact-based discussion, it turns to using emotion to drown out doubt. Not that emotions aren’t a viable and very necessary human experience to have, of course. Just draining. And many people don’t have the interest or the energy to deal with that, unfortunately.Coping mechanisms are coping mechanisms, and they are used because they work. It can be frustrating when one mechanism dominates to the extent that all that is left for others is silence, but I try hard to be as charitable as I can and focus on the good, sincere people employing the coping mechanisms. In the words of Elder Wirthlin, I try to play my own unique instrument in the orchestra of God – but I never try to drown out all of the others. That would make me just a different expression of their overly loud participation – and, unless I was willing to get into shouting matches (which I usually would win simply because few of them will shout at church), which I am not willing to do, I would lose every attempt to out-volume them. I play so others who aren’t confident enough to play yet will hear a counter-melody and know they aren’t alone – and there are SO many in that situation, far more than we tend to think. It’s called a silent majority for a reason.
That’s a really excellent way to approach it, Ray. I’ll have to try it for myself. I know that I would have loved it if someone had expressed even a tiny comment of doubt during SS or RS after my FC, so I could know that I wasn’t alone in a room full of TBMs. I suppose if I want that culture of supporting those with doubts instead of shutting them down or shutting them out, it’s got to start somewhere. Old-Timer wrote:Coping mechanisms are coping mechanisms, and they are used because they work. It can be frustrating when one mechanism dominates to the extent that all that is left for others is silence, but I try hard to be as charitable as I can and focus on the good, sincere people employing the coping mechanisms.
If you’re happy with your ward/branch, calling, friends and associates and if you feel like the church is a positive in your life then it doesn’t matter that JS had multiple wives, some young and some already married. I heard Jan Shipps at a NW Sunstone comment about this twenty five years ago but then it was the Book of Abraham. It will matter if the shelf gets too heavy or if there’s trouble in one of the other areas and then it’s near impossible to ignore. Being able to make peace with what was then and what is now is not going to be helped by the essays unless there’s some work in bridging that gap. I’ve come to terms with it by the way I view JS but I’ll never be a TBM with all that entails.
Quote:I’ve come to terms with it by the way I view JS but I’ll never be a TBM with all that entails.
Yup – and finding peace in that is wonderfully liberating.
Yesterday (11/11) was devastating for me regarding this latest essay. My wife, a close family member and a friend of 20-years all independent of each other kindly let me know they are taking huge steps-back regarding participation in the church. Each, has seperately been dealing with doubt for some time, and polyandry not even being any of their long-term main issues going back- as far as I can tell. Too much coincidence however, so I must infer this latest essay and its broader reaction (ie CNN-yesterday) may have legitimize those who struggle to have some peace about their conclusions in taking a difinative longer “time-out” at the very least. A breaking point if you will. All stated something to the effect they have no intention of removing membership but will wait on the sidelines (the close family member will go to sacrament only) indefinitely until they receive greater light and knowlege on which way to proceed. All I can think is, perhaps God has given this essay to those who suffer on the fence with shame/guilt and questioning as a difinitive gift of respite for a time. Outside proof that your not crazy to your more orthodox family members.
Its one thing to get a culture in which the majority rarely see an African Americans face to get too agervated over priesthood ban issues etc. Its entirely another to a introduce the issues in this latest easy to a culture that is borderline obsessed with morality/ chasedness. Tough Stuff for all of us I must say.
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:I’ve come to terms with it by the way I view JS but I’ll never be a TBM with all that entails.
Yup – and finding peace in that is wonderfully liberating.
Agreed.
:thumbup: As the spouse who was second to the faith crisis experience – I can attest to Nibbler’s observation.
Quote:believe only time will tell. I’ve seen a few of my more orthodox friends both share and comment on the NY Times article. They were unanimous in stating that none of the things mentioned in the essays were new; most comments were in the spirit of “move along, nothing to see here” or “we knew all this already, so this shouldn’t trouble you” – even though they led with this statement, no one had mentioned that they were troubled yet.
Beyond my own personal experience, I can add the experience of a cousin who tried to help and is now totally removed from church, my brothers best friend – same story. Time. Shelves break in their own time. Everyone can deal with a piece or two, but it’s the composite that tips the scale and changes the story. Polygamy though is a huge piece. No matter how you slice it.
Cedar wrote:Today seems to have been a bit of a media explosion for the Church, having news stories of the plural marriage essays making front page news in many major news outlets. The Church seems to have responded by this article in the newsroom of LDS.org…
I guess I was a little surprised that those outside of Utah or areas with higher LDS membership would care enough to make it a national news story, but I suppose many find polygamy fascinating (usually in a train-wreck kind of a way), so these essays would make for good attention-grabbing headlines…Anyway, I was just wondering what people thought about these news stories, and what it means for the Church. Will it just get people riled up for a few minutes, but not have much impact overall, or will it have a more lasting negative impact on people’s perception of the Church?Will these news stories create more conversations…I am also concerned for the missionaries – I hope that they have been informed about these essays, and given some guidance about how to deal with any questions regarding them…I realize that I may just be blowing this out of proportion, because polygamy is an extremely hard issue for me. This essay felt like a punch in the gut… Shades of Grey wrote:Yesterday (11/11) was devastating for me regarding this latest essay.
My wife, a close family member and a friend of 20-years all independent of each other kindly let me know they are taking huge steps-back regarding participation in the church. Each, has seperately been dealing with doubt for some time, and polyandry not even being any of their long-term main issues going back- as far as I can tell. Too much coincidence however, so I must infer this latest essay and its broader reaction (ie CNN-yesterday) may have legitimize those who struggle to have some peace about their conclusionsin taking a difinative longer “time-out” at the very least. A breaking point if you will…Its one thing to get a culture in which the majority rarely see an African Americans face to get too agervated over priesthood ban issues etc. Its entirely another to a introduce the issues in this latest easy to a culture that is borderline obsessed with morality/ chasedness. Tough Stuff for all of us I must say. My guess is that Church leaders weren’t planning on the Nauvoo polygamy essay getting as much media attention as it has and they probably thought it would be largely ignored by both Church members and non-members similar to the way most of the other essays were. I can definitely see why they saved these recent two polygamy essays for last though and I thought maybe they wouldn’t ever say anything about the Nauvoo plural marriages at all because it seems like some of this information really hits close to home in an emotional way for more members than some of the other issues typically do. For example, as bad as the racial priesthood ban was it has already been discontinued anyway so that’s one thing that makes it easier for some members to shrug off and not worry too much about.
Also, for the apparent Book of Abraham mistranslation and DNA evidence that doesn’t support some of the specific claims related to the Book of Mormon it seems like many members don’t have much interest in even paying attention to these issues closely enough to connect the dots as far as understanding why they are so problematic. However, in the case of polygamy and polyandry the Church is still basically insisting that this was directly commanded by God which just isn’t going to pass the smell test for many if not the majority of people as soon as they are willing to face it head on and honestly admit what they really feel about it. I definitely don’t think these polygamy essays are going to help the Church in terms of maintaining faith, commitment, and loyalty from their followers much less outside perception and at this point it looks like the Church is mostly relying on members/investigators not noticing or worrying too much about some of these details to do as well as they have so far in terms of numbers in spite of this information.
Quote:it looks like the Church is mostly relying on ignorance, apathy, denial, rationalizations, etc. regarding some of this information
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Admin Note]: Knock it off, DA. We have had to warn newcomers about sweeping insults, and just because you have been here for a long time doesn’t mean you can do it.
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