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One of my favorite Mormon doctrines was always the idea of “free agency.” It is basically related to the belief that this life is essentially a test and that we will be judged for our works. In order for these works to be a real demonstration of faith there must be some element of choice and we basically prove our righteousness by making the right choices. However, more recently I have heard this principle referred to simply as agency rather than free agency. Does anyone know the reason for this change in wording? Are they trying to say that if we make the wrong choices then we are no longer free because then we will be addicted to sin and under the control of Satan? One of my main objections to the current implementation of the Word of Wisdom is that I think it basically contradicts the basic principle of free agency. In reality, there really is no choice once you decide that you really want to belong to the group. The only other choice is to openly admit that you don’t care that much about being fully accepted by other members of the group which is often the more difficult choice to make once you have started down this path. Because of this peer pressure as a motivating factor, I don’t see how I can really pat myself on the back too much for not drinking coffee when I am basically worried about what my TBM co-workers would think of this. It is actually the easier choice to make.
I know some apologists will argue that the overall results produced justify the current hard-line WoW policy because these habits are a health risk and an unnecessary financial drain and alcohol abuse in particular can often lead to many other negative behaviors or consequences. Even many people that don’t believe the LDS Church’s central claims still admire the “clean living” and family values of many practicing Mormons. While I certainly appreciate what Church members are trying to accomplish (good results) the way that many of them go about it reminds me a little too much of my impression of the Muslims as far as the level of intolerance and self-righteous indignation toward supposed sinners within their ranks.
The result is that many people will comply with these rules more out of the fear of man than for the love of God. Sure this fear-based approach works to some extent but the problem is that Mormonism requires freedom of religion so you can never impose these kinds of harsh rules on very many people and realistically expect the majority to obey for a long period of time. This typically results in large numbers of members leaving the Church or becoming completely inactive sooner or later often with negative feelings about religion in general. Personally, I think too many leaders just see all the happy TBM faces and too often forget about all the disenfranchised members resulting from this questionable tradition.
I was told that the reason we need to change from free agency to agency is that the agency we are given wasn’t free. Christ gave his life so that we could have the agency. The change is to help us remember why we have agency in the first place. I understand the fear of man vs the love of God concept. Why do we do what we do and what methods are appropriate for guiding behavior? I’d love to be in the love of God camp but in many cases I work in the fear of man camp. It’s a process I guess.
AMEN to your post DA. I think they also slapped “free agency” in the face when they linked WoW to church membership and your eternal salvation. “You have agency and can choose, but if you decide to drink tea you can’t get baptized or attend the temple. You are damned and forbidden from the Celestrial Kingdom. What is your choice? Have a good day.”
Like seriously, is that any choice at all? I don’t think that is what was meant when the concept of free agency was proposed.
cwald wrote:AMEN to your post DA.
I think they also slapped “free agency” in the face when they linked WoW to church membership and your eternal salvation. “You have agency and can choose, but if you decide to drink tea you can’t get baptized or attend the temple. You are damned and forbidden from the Celestrial Kingdom. What is your choice? Have a good day.”
Like seriously, is that any choice at all? I don’t think that is what was meant when the concept of free agency was proposed.
Not only is this threat of condemnation a manipulative way to try to control people’s behavior, I think it’s dishonest in this case as well. Seriously, just how confident can they really be that drinking coffee or beer is really any kind of sin that people are likely to be condemned for? This sounds more like an individual opinion to me. Many people will readily agree that things like murder, lying, stealing, etc. are sins but how many are really going to believe us when we try to insist that they can’t drink coffee just because some prophet said so? This just gives people another reason to really question the credibility and reliability of these prophets.
Fwiw, I don’t think the apostles and global leaders are dishonest control freaks. My take on this — if you believe in a final judgment, then agency was never really free — there will be a time when we’ll be held to task for disobedience to whatever set of commandments is deemed important when we “meet our maker”. So, if the result of exercising our agency in the wrong direction is damnation eventually, are we ever really free in our exercise of it? I think not. The freedom is only temporary; there will come a time eternally when our agency is restricted if we use our agency wrongly in this life. With the WoW, Tithing and Chastity, there are immediate consequences such as losing your temple recommend, and in the case of chastity, even your Church membership. So, I don’t think we are ever really free in our exercise of our agency as there is a “piper to pay” eventually. Add to that all the cultural expectations and shaming you feel in your Ward if you don’t tow the line, I think that limits agency even further. Immediate consequences DO make it harder to feel free in the exercise of your agency.
Regarding the GA’s trying to control our behavior — I think most GA’s sincerely believe that these things come from God, and are for our good. With all the time and money it takes to be a faithful member, at least we know that most people, if serving as GA’s, have arrived at that point by serving for reasons other than naked self-interest.
This doesn’t mean that I believe every commandment we hear from the GA’s is necessary good for all of us. In fact, I believe that sometimes men/GA’s make up doctrine just to “get people to do what they want”.
Case in point, one branch president started telling everyong that not only did they have responsibility to home teach, they had a responsibility to be home taught. He was trying to get his HT numbers up, and thought that if he got the families to be more willing to be home taught, and to proactively call their home teachers, the numbers would go up. His motive was good;he probably believed in the program, and believed in the leadership of the stake who was pressuring him to get his numbers up, but he INVENTED the commandment that everyone has a responsiblility to be home taught. I think GA’s sometimes do this in their talks. They think they need to motivate the members to some aim, so they invent concepts and reasons to point people’s behavior in that direction.
That’s what you get when your mandate is to “preach nothing but repentence”. Opinions and sometimes even invented stories (per Paul H. Dunn) to get people to believe and act on what you say. GA’s aren’t exempt.
Old-Timer wrote:Fwiw, I don’t think the apostles and global leaders are dishonest control freaks.
I don’t think they are dishonest control freaks either; in fact I think they generally have good intentions. What I think is dishonest and manipulative is simply the message received by members/investigators implying that they will be condemned for these supposed sins if they don’t repent. If you believe your own lies it doesn’t make them any less misleading to others that believe you.
My guess is that the possibility that maybe this message isn’t really the best possible story to be telling people anymore never really occurred to most Church leaders because they have already bought into this tradition themselves and are surrounded by others that don’t have any problem with it either. So even though they probably never meant for it to turn out this way this is the kind of thing we end up with when people put too much faith in fallible men, the notion that coffee is a sin worthy of eternal condemnation.
That kind of thinking definately happens. A few months ago MIL got really upset when my DH ordered an iced tea. She pretty much told him that he was going to hell for purposely ignoring the WOW which means .. no temple .. and no eternal life in the highest kingdom, yes it got down .. or should I say up to that level. I really admire people that follow the WOW out of faith and a genuine desire to do what they feel is “right”. Unfortunately it seems like the members who judge others so harshly about WOW issues are the ones messing around with free agency in a way. But then again where did those feelings come from, maybe leaders or talks or their parents? It is a endless circle. It is a difficult situation to be in. Should he not have ordered the iced tea just to keep the drama away? Or should he have done what he did? Even I’m not sure which is the smarter alternative. Obviously the world still turns but that five minute conversation was tense to say the least!
Sorry but I can’t get all that upset about this one. Agency means choice and accepting the consequences of the choice. cwald wrote:I think they also slapped “free agency” in the face when they linked WoW to church membership and your eternal salvation. “You have agency and can choose, but if you decide to drink tea you can’t get baptized or attend the temple. You are damned and forbidden from the Celestial Kingdom. What is your choice? Have a good day.”
Like seriously, is that any choice at all? I don’t think that is what was meant when the concept of free agency was proposed.
If the rules going in are no coffee or tea and the consequence is no temple recommend then it’s pretty simple. If I lie about using coffee or tea or obey with a doubtful heart, then come judgment, if there will be such a thing, I’ll get what I deserve. I don’t feel used, abused, coerced or somehow forced in anyway or another. You want to play, you follow the rules. You pay your money and you take your chances. if people are leaving the church in droves because of being barred from Starbucks, then maybe the missionaries shouldn’t have skipped the WoW lesson. (An elder in my mission had great success with this approach.) Sorry but commitment has to run a bit deeper than this.
And in case somebody thinks I’m a closet TBM, my first wife has already pronounced what my eternal reward will be and I have no reason to doubt her.
You said it GBSmith…..I wish I had’ve said that. Old-Timer wrote:Fwiw, I don’t think the apostles and global leaders are dishonest control freaks.
If that were completely true then we wold have never gotten to the level we are with the WofW. Of course they want to control behavior. They may think they are doing it for a good cause but it is still control non the less. The WofW was not even a commandment to begin with but it got elevated in the 1920’s to the level of temple worthiness which in Mormon culture means a factor in your eternal salvation. I not sure how you say that is anything other than exerting control to get a desired result. To control someone you physical restrain them or put a reward punishment system in place. Society is full of control mechanisms and the Mormon Church just takes it one step further and ties it to your immortal soul.
In any group you only have agency to the degree the group allows it. If you cross the line you are sent to prison or perhaps thrown out of the group or just told God hates you now. It is all about control. There needs to be control to make society work on certain levels. MOrmonism just uses the same tools. It is just that we want a much narrower outcome so we impose stricter controls.
Quote:I not sure how you say that is anything other than exerting control to get a desired result.
I never said it wasn’t, Cadence. I said I don’t think they are dishonest control freaks. There’s a big difference, and it’s why I try hard to be very precise in what I type and say.
There is a difference between establishing rules one believes will be beneficial within an organization (which every decent leader who has lived throughout history has done – as well as every bad leader) and being a control freak – and an even bigger difference between that kind of leadership and being dishonest. I think there is too much controlling activity in the Church, but I also think there are WAY too many members who want more rules / control in their lives than I do.
Of course, organized religion is partially about control – and it’s not a small portion. I just don’t think the LDS leadership, as a whole, is made up of dishonest control freaks. The current “control freakiness”
I agree that the WofW has elements of control freakiness, but the overall health and wellness benefits of following it take it out of the category of arbitrary control freakiness, imo. Agree in theory or not, Mormons live longer than just about anyone else and have lower rates of most cancers. That alone provides “reason” for the leaders to believe in it, and when you add the assumed spiritual benefit . . . I just don’t see this as an example of any kind of dishonesty.
You know this is pet peeve issue for yourself, and I’m fine with that. We all have them. I just think we all need to be very careful with those issues to avoid exaggeration and hyperbole – and I think implications of dishonesty, especially, and egregious control freakiness when discussing leaders and the WofW enter that area. Of course, I might be wrong, but I just don’t see it to the degree you do.
GBSmith wrote:Sorry but I can’t get all that upset about this one. Agency means choice and accepting the consequences of the choice…If the rules going in are no coffee or tea and the consequence is no temple recommend then it’s pretty simple. If I lie about using coffee or tea or obey with a doubtful heart, then come judgment, if there will be such a thing, I’ll get what I deserve. I don’t feel used, abused, coerced or somehow forced in anyway or another. You want to play, you follow the rules…if people are leaving the church in droves because of being barred from Starbucks, then maybe the missionaries shouldn’t have skipped the WoW lesson. (An elder in my mission had great success with this approach.) Sorry but commitment has to run a bit deeper than this.
I understand the idea that the rules are the rules and everyone knows what they are and I won’t be getting a temple recommend any time soon because if this. Sure I can live without coffee and alcohol easily enough but I guess the real question is why should I? What really bothers me about this is not really the idea of rules in general as much as the way the Church has gone about it by basically claiming that coffee is a sin worthy of eternal condemnation which is just not an easy doctrine to defend at this point.
What’s worse is that now we have self-appointed health-nazis that want to give people a guilt trip about consuming any caffeine whatsoever. It reminds me of the guy on “Everybody Loves Raymond” that would go around saying, “Why don’t you just drink poison?” If you think it’s that important then don’t do it but I don’t see why we need to be such busybodies about what everyone else is doing. Some Church members worry that other members will see them buying coffee or beer almost as if they had just robbed a bank. If that’s not a cult-like characteristic of Church membership then I don’t know what is.
As a person who gets a Christmas card every year from Coke for the amount of Diet Coke I consume, I have to tell you that caffeine is not an issue for me. But I’ve never been asked in a recommend interview if I drink caffeinated beverages, only if I keep the WoW and the answer to that is yes. What some member may think about what I do is not my problem and not anything I care about. And that goes for my beard, blue shirts and political leanings. People are the same be they methodists, baptists, mormons, or even unitarians if you’re doing something they don’t think is “right”. But that’s their worry, not mine. Getting back to agency. The choices are mine and I’m grateful for that.
I like what GBSmith is saying — basically the price of agency is having to live with your choices. It sounds a bit like some of us (myself included when it comes to certain commadments) would rather we could choose whatever we want without any negative consequences at all. Now, I agree that there are times when leaders would like to tie commandments that serve their agenda (like home teaching) to a person’s salvation, thus creating an eternal consequence that may not seem to fit the infraction, so to that extent, I see Cadence’s point.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the purpose of this life accourding to Mormonism wasn’t to see if we’ll do all things that the Lord commands us? And wouldn’t it be nice to hear it straight from God in person?
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