https://religionnews.com/2022/10/14/mor ... ologizing/Several years ago, Elder Jeffrey Holland publicly retracted a faith-promoting story he had shared in a training for mission leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the weeks after he first presented it, the story went viral on social media and was published in the Church News. Then Elder Holland learned that some elements of the story were not quite true.
So he did the classy thing, calling attention to the fact that the family in question had informed him the story was inaccurate. He asked church members to stop sharing it and preaching about it (which is why I am not recounting its details here), and he publicly thanked the family for bringing the error to his attention.
Then the story faded away, so much so that when I Googled it last week it took a couple of minutes even to find it. Elder Holland’s mea culpa had no lasting negative impact on the church, its reputation or its mission. He made a mistake; he acknowledged it openly; he corrected it. And we all moved on. Yawn.
I'm wondering if these two examples are reflective of the different personalities of Holland and Bednar?The reason I was revisiting this incident last week was because of the less helpful way the church initially responded to Religion News Service’s reporting about portions of Elder David Bednar’s recent General Conference talk that appeared to be plagiarized verbatim from a sermon by a deceased Protestant pastor. An RNS reporter brought the questionable passages to the attention of the church’s public affairs department, asking if the church wished to make a statement. The next day, it did:
“Mr. Reid was mentioned by name and referenced on multiple occasions in footnotes. The transcript of his remarks is published for all to see. For those who would try to find fault, we would invite you to consider the spirit of his message.”
I’m noticing several developments here. First, the church appears to be claiming the footnotes and quotation marks — that were not present in the original published talk — had been there all along. (As though no one had thought to take screenshots in 2022?)
Second, the church cast itself as the victim of fault-finders who dared to imagine that an apostle who had served as a university president should not plagiarize the writings of others.
And third, it invited us to consider “the spirit of his message.” This seemed to suggest that presenting someone else’s sermon as your own is fine as long as it was a good sermon.
Jana likes to think Church Leaders can learn and grow...In 2015 President Dallin Oaks said that “the history of the church is not to seek apologies or to give them” and that “we look forward and not backward.”
I’m interested in knowing why this is our approach, especially when there is so much research lately about the power of apologies in building trust. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Maurice Schweitzer, Alison Wood Brooks and Adam D. Galinsky note that all companies need to apologize from time to time, and that a well-crafted and sincere apology “can restore balance or even improve relationships,” actually increasing rather than decreasing customers’ trust. One study cited in the article noted that in cases of medical malpractice, doctors were concerned that if they apologized for something they had done wrong, lawsuits would increase. The new approach actually had the opposite effect, resulting in less litigation, not more.
Obviously, the LDS church is not a traditional “company” in a consumer sense, yet it is absolutely an institution built upon relationships. And healthy relationships depend upon humility and being accountable to each other.
I think the inability to apologize is damning to us spiritually, as a church. I mean “damning” in the Latter-day Saint sense of the word, that it impedes our progress. There is so much freedom in being able to say “I messed up and I am so sorry.” President Oaks was right in saying we are a people who look forward, but we can’t do that in a meaningful way unless and until we’ve openly confronted the wrong we’ve done too.
When the church fails to acknowledge even small mistakes — like when it appeared to be trying to pretend Elder Bednar’s plagiarism didn’t happen — it erodes its own credibility with the bigger things, such as how well it says it has handled cases of sexual abuse.
I think her hope is misplaced. The way succession is done within the Quorum of Apostles, selecting like-minded individuals who can be trusted to toe the line, ensures change is slow if at all. The Church literally has to wait for for 15 people to die off before a new generation of leaders can throw them under the bus and move forward. And through all that time those new leaders are being further conditioned to believe nothing is wrong with the way things are.We can do better than this.
It's been over 40 years since the Priesthood Ban was cancelled. Still no apology. Don't hold your breath for change Jana...
