Strong Culture without Ostracization?

[Anonymous]

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

SilentDawning wrote:

In my schoolwork on culture in organizations, it’s clear that strong shared values tend to attract certain people, and repel others. When a group of people, whether religious or not, have a set of values that are widely known and shared by the vast majority, people who do not follow those values (even non-gospel ones) tend to stick out like a sore thumb. They often experience ostracization although their behavior does not violate bedrock principles — only the style of the organization…Is it possible to have all the benefits of strong culture, without ostracization for people on the fringes? Or is that a case of “having your cake and eating it too”?

I definitely don’t think the Church would lose anything truly worthwhile if it stopped being quite so strict and unfriendly toward so many members/investigators that don’t quite fit the current active and obedient TBM profile for one reason or another. To be honest I don’t believe the strong LDS culture is all that beneficial overall to begin with, personally I think it is too strong for the Church’s own good because it has become harsh and overbearing and the current results are very mixed at best with a strong downside to take away from whatever positive influence most of the individual doctrines have. One problem is that the “fringe” of the LDS Church includes so many completely ordinary but also perfectly decent people and being so strict about so many specific rules and beliefs currently appeals to such a small minority of people that the Church has basically put itself on the fringe and mostly outside of and often in direct opposition to the mainstream culture.

Furthermore, most of the practical benefits of doctrines like the WoW, tithing, chastity, testimony, etc. could already be achieved simply by focusing on the spirit of the law without needing to be so strict about them; in fact the Church could probably influence far more people that way because preventing unnecessary harm and a reasonable amount of unselfishness, loyalty, etc. naturally appeal to many if not the majority of people. However, by putting so much emphasis on and trying to enforce such a strict and specific definition of the letter of the law for these same doctrines they have become some of the most common deal-breakers for large numbers of investigators and existing members. Intentionally alienating and excluding so many people over details like this is especially counterproductive when the Church depends so much on families remaining active from one generation to the next to maintain support.

Great post. Agree.

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