14 Years - have delivered what?

[Kishkumen]

In the case of Interpreter, I could imagine that an association with an online journal might have sputtered out in conflict or faded away in apathy. Many groups do, both online and in real life. The fact that these folks are still around in anything like their originally intended form is indeed an accomplishment, I would say, now that Kishkumen has pushed me to think about it again. I wouldn't put it at the level of the fire department, but I guess it's at least at the poker game level, though I'm not sure how much higher.

I am not willing to pay the price of entry to join the Mopologetic crew, were that even an option, but I do envy their camaraderie. I recall the many times we have laughed at their expense, calling their mutual appreciation society, "back slappin' bros," but it would be really nice to have supportive friends of that kind. The possibility may feel a little more tangible to me because I was not that far from being in that club at one point in my life. I recall going to the BYU party one year at SBL and receiving such a warm welcome. I was frankly taken aback at how well I was treated.

At this point I had taken classes with Nibley, conversed with John Gee a couple of times (he was my Sunday School teacher), and worked for Jack Welch as a teaching assistant. My Roman history professor, although a somewhat abrasive character in some ways, was very much a Nibley fan and close to Jack Welch. Stephen Ricks and I read the entire Aeneid in Latin together, and he came to my temple wedding. I was quite good friends with an illustrator who did contract work on FARMS books, and he gave my wife and me a framed calligraphic rendering of our names together as a wedding present.

When the LDS apologists get together to do their podcasts and parties, I wonder to myself what it might have been like to be among them. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not flattering myself by assuming I would have been, but it still seems like it might have been possible. Instead, I am outside, and I have not had such friends of like mind for decades with whom I could regularly interact in person. Don Bradley is the closest I have to that, and I say he is not exactly that because he is one person (whose friendship I greatly treasure), and we are unable to see each other in person except for a short while every few years.

In a funny way, Mormonism remains my community. The LDS Church is not because one must understandably toe the line to be a part of that, and it can be uncomfortable to have the LDS Church as a divisive factor within my Mormon-oriented community. I ran into Jack Welch at a funeral, and he did not look very happy to see me. That made me sad, but I could not blame him.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

In a funny way, Mormonism remains my community. The LDS Church is not because one must understandably toe the line to be a part of that, and it can be uncomfortable to have the LDS Church as a divisive factor within my Mormon-oriented community. I ran into Jack Welch at a funeral, and he did not look very happy to see me. That made me sad, but I could not blame him.

Turning a funeral into a stage for a petty cold shoulder really highlights that profound, Christlike grace. What an asshole.

[Kishkumen]

Kish, I was really just wondering what approaches you think were effective, or might have been effective, and how you would have preferred to be approached when you were in that position.

Hmmm. You would think these should be easy questions, and yet they are very difficult. For a long time, I talked about pastoral apologetics. It was amazing to me how quickly interactions with members, leaders, and apologists could turn adversarial once you started pursuing some questions in ways that were perceived to be threatening. The apologists cut their teeth on fighting Protestant anti-Mormons, and they tended to give questioning, doubting, and disillusioned members very similar treatment. There was also an ideological component to the tension. Doubters found themselves in league with liberal Mormons, and apologists tended to attack liberal Mormons. The distinction between ideology and religion could be hard to draw at times. Were Mormons of a certain opinion interpreting things in that way because they had an ideologically inflected reading?

It would have been nice not to have so many forces pulling us away or pushing us out.

I’m also interested in those things you considered “shelf breakers” if you care to share.

To me, the ultimate shelfbreaker was not a point of belief but one of emphasis on authority. Mormonism is very hierarchical and focused on authority. That does not work for me. I do not want church leaders in my personal affairs and telling me what to do. I don't want self-appointed busybodies nosing around my life. I don't want a "minister" visiting my home to see whether they approve of the books I read and the movies I watch. I don't want to have someone tell me how I must raise my kids or interact with my spouse.

All of that is intrusive to me, and I don't want any part in it. I am happy to listen to messages of moral encouragement from religious leaders, but the idea that I must obey someone because he is God's mouthpiece is a non-starter. The idea that I need to submit to interrogation from a bishop is also ludicrous to me. Once I realized I neither believed in that nor wanted my world to be dictated by that approach, I was done with LDSism for the most part. I don't know that there is any approach that could bridge that gap. I am strongly opposed to the LDS Church's fundamental organizational character.

Turning a funeral into a stage for a petty cold shoulder really highlights that profound, Christlike grace. What an asshole.

No, no. Not a cold shoulder. The man seemed genuinely shocked. I felt badly, honestly. It brings me no pleasure to think that a basically decent human being like Jack Welch should be unhappy to encounter me. I have to acknowledge that my participation in this forum would, on its own, constitute a reasonable cause for him not to be happy to see me. After all, he is treated very poorly here.

[sock puppet]

* * *self-appointed busybodies nosing around my life. * * *

Emphasis added.

[Limnor]

Had the LDS Church been less hierarchical and perhaps allowed more room for doubt and individual conscience (if I’m understanding you correctly—less busybodies deciding for you), do you think you might have remained Mormon despite historical or doctrinal doubts?

It also sounds like there may be pushback against a deliberate apologetic approach that presupposes where the needle should move might have been a factor. Like maybe you wanted room to investigate without somebody deciding beforehand where the needle ought to end up.

Am I tracking?

[Kishkumen]

Had the LDS Church been less hierarchical and perhaps allowed more room for doubt and individual conscience (if I’m understanding you correctly—less busybodies deciding for you), do you think you might have remained Mormon despite historical or doctrinal doubts?

It also sounds like there may be pushback against a deliberate apologetic approach that presupposes where the needle should move might have been a factor. Like maybe you wanted room to investigate without somebody deciding beforehand where the needle ought to end up.

Am I tracking?

My parents separated in the late 1970s. They were the first couple in our branch to separate, but it happened in the midst of a rise in feminist sentiment in our area. In retrospect, I believe that my family was riding a wave that was happening all around us. I am not saying my parents were particularly happy or well suited for each other, but they were not so unhappy that you would assume that they were doomed to split.

I feel similarly about my exit from the LDS Church. It is hard for me to separate my reasons for leaving from the events that were transpiring around me. I ceased to believe in the antiquity of the Book of Mormon before I left BYU, but I stayed in the LDS Church another decade after that. I just don't think that is very important. What chafed more over time was the LDS Church's political involvement in gender issues. Anti-ERA, anti-gay marriage. That stuff. The idea that a local LDS leader could pull me into his office, call me "by inspiration" to man a phone tree to campaign against gay marriage, and then discipline me for disagreeing with him over it--all that is just too much for me. Absurd.

I feel very strongly about not making laws to reflect the religious values of particular groups. I also don't want to be in a group that views it as obligatory for members to follow the political agendas of leaders who claim to speak for God. The gender obsession of the LDS Church simply is extreme-right ideological codswallop, and I want no part in it. That Proclamation to the World on the Family is seriously nuts. And I can't overstate how gutting it was when the LDS Church forbade the baptism of the children of gay parents. It was a move so obviously un-Christian that it boggled my mind that the policy could have been enacted.

When I say all of this, I speak for myself. Others choose to do what they do. I contend that the authority issue is what ultimately makes these things toxic pills to swallow, in my view. Maybe I have disproved my own thesis, though. Would I have necessarily left had I lived at a different time and in different circumstances? It is tough to say. I do think the rising tide of political conflict over gender issues, and the LDS Church's activism in connection with it, were decisive factors in my exit and, honestly, help keep me out.

[Gadianton]

. The idea that a local LDS leader could pull me into his office, call me "by inspiration" to man a phone tree to campaign against gay marriage, and then discipline me for disagreeing with him over it--all that is just too much for me. Absurd.

Holy crap...I hope you let him know what an uninspired garbage bag he was.

[Limnor]

Kish, I’m think I might be getting it. And by “it,” what I mean is an understanding of “why would you defend these guys?”

Is the grace you now extend to apologists your way of demonstrating the kind of treatment you wish apologists extend to those who have doubts or issues with conscience? And so rather than returning “eye for eye” the treatment you experienced, you’re deliberately trying not to mimic it?

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. I do appreciate how much you’ve opened up about this, so thank you.

[Kishkumen]

Holy crap...I hope you let him know what an uninspired garbage bag he was.

LOL, Dean Robbers.

I was saying the idea that such a thing was possible was repugnant to me. It did not actually happen to me. And yet, I do recall one Sunday in my ward in Florida, a member of the bishopric approached me to ask whether I had written a letter to the editor in favor of gay marriage in the most recent edition of the local paper. I had not (although I certainly could have comfortably done so), but I was struck by the oddity of a local leader approaching me out of the blue with that question.

LDS folk might defend the Church by saying, "Well, that guy was just a jerk; my bishopric would never have done that," but I believe that the organization's structure and character make it more likely that such things will happen. I don't think it is a fluke one can chalk up to a couple of bad apples or jerks.

Kish, I’m think I might be getting it. And by “it,” what I mean is an understanding of “why would you defend these guys?”

Is the grace you now extend to apologists your way of demonstrating the kind of treatment you wish apologists extend to those who have doubts or issues with conscience? And so rather than returning “eye for eye” the treatment you experienced, you’re deliberately trying not to mimic it?

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. I do appreciate how much you’ve opened up about this, so thank you.

I am not aiming at much of anything except being able to live with myself and refraining from further polluting the airwaves. In a sense, I am Mormon. So, what do I do with that? I have recognized that this is the case, and I don't want to be tortured about it. I think that one can be proud of being Mormon by having in view and seeking out the very best of that tradition without contributing to the worst of it. The biggest point of disagreement I have with the LDS Church and its apologists is the role of the leaders of the LDS Church. I am not worried about whether there were Nephites or if Kolob is nigh unto the throne of God. I don't expect that LDS people will be perfect, and I don't believe they are especially awful.

I just don't think that having a leader(s) who is seen to be the voice of God is a good idea. If a local bishop tells me God has called me to do something that is supremely unwise or against my conscience, I am not going to place myself at the mercy of their supposed inspiration. Now consider that on the churchwide level. LDS leaders declared that the children of gay parents could not be baptized LDS. By doing this, they put the imprimatur of their divinely inspired and elected authority on the line to do something that was the opposite of Christian. If that does not cast doubt on their authority for someone, I don't know what would.

[Equality]

They succeeded at funneling millions of donor dollars into Redbrick Filmworks. They made Mark Goodman a very happy man.

One of the five original MTV VJs?