Response to John D’s Survey

[Anonymous]

http://daymonsmith.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/why-mormons-leave-surveys-as-scripts-for-a-new-culture/

This was very wordy, but there were a few points in it that I too felt about both the survey and the movement of grouping together people in faith crisis in places like NOM, MoSto, etc. It creates a counter-culture with its own correlation effort, to create a common vernacular for expressions of disbelief.

I have been in a couple of gatherings of these folks, and at least twice the group wanted to have a sort of “un-testimony” meeting, either sharing their deconversion stories or at minimum rating their current level of belief in some specific aspect of the church. I think this kind of thing has the exact same problem that it does in the church. We correlate people’s experiences so they are now affiliated with a group of like-minded people, but in reality, people are so much more diverse than that. Inside, everyone knows that they are unique, so correlating who were are eventually leads to feeling inauthentic.

We’re trying to get all non-believers to fit into a newly emerging non-believing culture. Yet as the author of this OP puts it, it depends on creating a false set of boundaries around the church and declaring ourselves outside of it. Then people within the new “out” group are talking about that other group, the “in” group, but there is still no clear definition of what that “in” group is that the “in” group would agree is accurate. They create a straw man of what the church actually is. They define the church as whatever they are not, in the specific way that speaks to them. For those of us with more nuanced or less literal beliefs, we sometimes disagree with their definition or don’t recognize the church they are describing as our own.

What do you think?

[Anonymous]

I’ll take time to read through that article tonight when I have time. But my initial reaction is similar to yours, HG. It is the same feeling I got on some other boards, including the Open Stories Ward#2 or whatever that group was. Most people find the need to voice their concerns, and those groups seem to turn to that and seek to validate feelings. The call is to have a place to be open to discuss all, but it becomes a discussion that if you are discussing things in the correlated way, that can be done at church on Sunday, not in those groups who can’t voice their feelings in church. So there is a claim to be open, but it is skewed towards the deconversion tone.

I get it, and understand what they’re trying to do, but I don’t feel I fit in with their group either. I kinda want a “no group” setting, where just everyone can be. Maybe that is too hard to organize a group of non-organized thoughts???

Brian has had more to do with transitions and so forth, I’d like to hear his experience.

But John has been pretty open, to his credit, and seems to have arrived at a place now where he doesn’t think the church can possibly be true, and maybe not even believe in a God, but seems to seek the social integration, in church and in these groups outside of church.

That’s my take.

[Anonymous]

In regards to this survey and similar projects going on out there, I think it is really important to draw attention to this serious problem that has existed for a long time — disaffection and subsequent loss of members. What rare families in the church aren’t affected by this today, that don’t have at least a single loved one or extended family member who is the “black sheep” of the family?

I’d be more than happy if The LDS Church in SLC put us all out of business on the internet by getting off their _ _ _ and doing something better. They have billions of dollars and millions of unpaid volunteers. We have shoe string budgets, the internet, and all be told probably less than 500 core people who generate 90% of the significant materials out there (just a wild guess to make my point).

They could put StayLDS out of business for all I care if they actually had some kind of support structure in place. I’d go join that and help them out instead. But I can barely get away with even talking about this subject in my local ward without tip toeing around to spare the delicate and fragile story lived by people I love, let alone actually address realistic ways to minister to the vast majority of people on that ward roster that nobody has ever seen. IT PISSES ME OFF!!!!!!! I would love to walk away, but I can’t (edit: it would seem peaceful to walk away. I wouldn’t “love” it). Why? Because they f’ed up my family too! I have to face it every single day, day in, day out, no relief, no rest, no peace. I can’t even escape from it if I tried. If I resigned and tried to walk away, I would still be left with constant reminders. What else is there? Divorce my wife and trade her in for a faithful one? Cut off all contact with any family members that don’t toe the line? Not only would that break my kids’ hearts, but it would violate everything I still cling to about the Mormon Gospel (like what? we just put down injured sheep with a bullet to the head when they can’t be perfect and might blemish the look of our flock? That’s not the Good Shepherd and Atonement story I heard in primary).

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! (shakes fists at the sky to taunt the lightning and the storm like Lt. Dan on the mast of that shrimpin’ boat in Forest Gump)

I wish they would just do something, anything, about it besides pretend it doesn’t exist and that all is well in Zion. I don’t have the luxury of ignoring the problems. Especially lately I have felt very frustrated with this. Based on some recent rare and private insights into how things work at the highest levels of our church, I personally feel many of these problems are based on WILLFUL ignorance. That and petty organizational politics and power plays of the sort that makes me not a little disheartened and ill: top leaders who care and understand being kept in fear of speaking and treated like peons, and people who have lost touch holding on to a vision of the world that no longer works (or even matches reality?).

Sorry. That’s the end of my rant. Been going through a lot with this lately.

Post-rant responses:

It’s VERY difficult to build an uplifting community that serves the needs of the disaffected. StayLDS does this, I believe, because of all of you awesome people who give your time and energy to make it happen. Your spiritually mature influence benefits hundreds and hundreds of people a day.

I have a good level of influence in the Mormon Stories community here around Wash DC and Baltimore. I believe we are good at being very inclusive. We have some self-described TBMs that participate. Our conference theme here in Oct was “Big Tent Mormonism” and all the talks were about forming a positive connection with, or claiming our Mormonism regardless of being “in” or “out” of the church. It was one of the more spiritual church-like events I have been to in a while.

IMO, and this usually gets me into some hot water sounding like a fascist, but you can’t actually have completely free speech or a democracy in these kinds of groups. Not if you want to really be as inclusive of diversity as people say they want to be. There has to be limits and boundaries, and there has to be loving but ruthless enforcement of those boundaries, to include identifying troublemakers and asking them to leave (working with them and coaching them first, of course). Rabid and unrestrained, angry Mormons can not just chill out and hang with rabid and unrestrained true believers. In a dreamy ideal, we all sit around the campfire and sing. But that doesn’t actually happen. People are too raw and too emotional on the extremes.

FWIW, the OSF board of directors is working on the problem of diversity, and also working directly to sort out problems that we know about in regional communities — in particular right now is Phoenix and Boise. I don’t know all what is going on, just that there has been a bit of drama. It isn’t my area, so I only get 2nd-hand information and summaries of what is being fixed.

I agree completely that labels are counter-productive to unity. Those of us here having this discussion are the types that really have moved past all that. Problem is, a lot of people out there haven’t. I consider myself Mormon. I am “in” even though many many others would want to label me as “out.” I don’t really care ultimately what they think. I prefer to just leave it at that, unless I really need to clarify or describe some of my individual positions for some reason.

I stopped participating a year or two ago on the original Open Mormon super secret, private, open to everyone and anyone group because of some unrestrained discussions. It was way too much drama for my tastes.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

They could put StayLDS out of business for all I care if they actually had some kind of support structure in place. I’d go join that and help them out instead. But I can barely get away with even talking about this subject in my local ward without tip toeing around to spare the delicate and fragile story lived by people I love, let alone actually address realistic ways to minister to the vast majority of people on that ward roster that nobody has ever seen.

Amen to this! I could not agree more. Really.

I do believe the boundaries and restrictions on free speech help for a community like this. It’s when it’s completely unrestrained, no moderation of comments, no vision, that all roads lead to implied shared disaffection. And yes, every time this topic comes up, I’m thinking of OM (where I am still visiting every few days or so). I feel that StayLDS is actually successful and positive. I’m glad to hear that MoSto and OSF are there, at least in places.

[Anonymous]

I would also imagine the OSF is catering to the needs as they see it, which, like I said, ends up being the kind of thoughts and topics that can’t be discussed at church.

Perhaps we have our place and our identity among the groups, but I would imagine volume of traffic is greater at places like NOM and other places than what we sustain. Is that accurate? If so, the traffic is telling what people are looking for.

That doesn’t mean we need to stop what we’re doing, just recognize I fit in here more than other places, and others don’t.

But I am saddened by your frustrations, Brian. Because I keep hoping that soon enough the church will do something about it, and this website can go away replaced by a church sanctioned same-mission effort, and I can join that and not feel like I’m being judged (from my family) that I’m a black sheep, when I don’t feel I am. I still have hope we’ll all talk openly about these things in church…in time. I hope that my hope isn’t misplaced or naive.

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