From My Informant: A Tale of Two Factions

[_Dr. Shades]

the demise of a religion is not fun to watch . . .

Says who?

[_Maksutov]

the demise of a religion is not fun to watch . . .

Says who?

I'm always amused by watching houses of cards and rows of dominoes fall. Catastrophic failures can be entertaining if you don't suffer collateral damage.

If people leave a religion for something more sane and stable I'm all for it. I just worry that they'll end up with hyperChristians or channelers of unicorn riders from Atlantis.

[_Always Changing]

I'm always amused by watching houses of cards and rows of dominoes fall. Catastrophic failures can be entertaining if you don't suffer collateral damage.

If people leave a religion for something more sane and stable I'm all for it. I just worry that they'll end up with hyperChristians or channelers of unicorn riders from Atlantis.

My parents were fascinated with such collapses. Too bad they didn't live long enough to be able to watch it. Collateral damage can contribute to the collapse, in the form of lawsuits. As for the survivors being attracted to similar forms of belief, that is also one of my worries.

[_Maksutov]

In your honor, LudovicusM:

Those Great and Spacious Buildings all look alike...

[_Doctor Scratch]

Hey doc,

I am jumping waaaay ahead assuming (hoping) this will all pan out...

What avenue would likely be taken to tone down, or justify the the Book of Mormon as less than it currently is?Even if it is "arguably one of the biggest problems," which I certainly believe, it is also Mormonism. It would be like taking the Ring out of the Lord of the Rings.

I've been searching hard for a rational scenario of how this could be presented or assimilated to the folks? The only logical way to me would be to do it quickly and suddenly with a revelation...but if there is a division in the hierarchy I am not sure how that would happen?

Hi, Markk. I would see it happening along the lines that other changes in the Church have happened--e.g., the removal of the penalties from the temple ceremony, or the subtle re-writing of the intro to the Book of Mormon that happened a few years back. If the "Eyring Faction" wins out, I think we'll see a gradualist approach to the "de-emphasis," and yes: I actually agree with the Mopologists that a key arena for the changes will be in "Mormon Studies" and/or the New MI. The fact is that a rigidly fundamentalist approach to the Book of Mormon is untenable. The apologists have been saying, "If the Book of Mormon isn't literal history, then the whole Church is a lie!!!" Is it really? If a more nuanced approach to the Book of Mormon becomes orthodoxy, do you really think these hardliners are going to turn in their TRs and resign from the Church? Is it really true that their faith cannot survive a non-historical Book of Mormon? They'll go kicking and screaming, but I really doubt they'd actually resign/leave: their too "juiced-in" to LDS culture and social life. The point, in any case, is that they are engaged in some extremely toxic black-and-white thinking here. Another question worth asking is: What would they do with those LDS who currently *don't* believe in a historical Book of Mormon? Kick them out? Say, "It's okay, as long as you never breathe a word to anyone else about your 'heretical' beliefs"? As I noted elsewhere, I think that the main issue the Brethren are looking at is defection of the membership--particularly youth--and as Beastie noted, they can try to address this in one of two ways: going more "liberal," or battening down the hatches and becoming more rigidly fundamentalist. The thing is: what is more likely to keep members in the Church? A more "open tent" environment that can accommodate a range of belief? Or, instead, something that says, "Believe exactly what we tell you, or else you're through!"

Well, the fundamentalist position is already failing--it's more or less what the Church has been doing for the past several decades--certainly during this passage of time when the Internet came of age, save for the past few years or so with the essays and what have you. Heck, even John Gee recently posted a blog entry noting that most young LDS don't leave the Church for other religions; instead, they jump ship for the allure of a more "liberal" secular life. How is the Church supposed to compete with that? If you're a classic-FARMS apologist, the answer is, "By adopting an even more aggressive fundamentalist posture." This is just going to drive more people, more youth, out of the Church, and if you have no youth, the Church is going to wither and die: it won't have a future. And let me point out in passing that one of DCP's favorite points to repeat over and over again is how irritated he is when the youth suggest that they might know more than he does. If a younger Latter-day Saint says, "I really need the Church to soften its stance on homosexuality in order to feel comfortable as a member of the Church," and DCP or another apologist does the usual thing of telling this youngster that s/he is youthfully naïve and immature in the Gospel, and is getting influenced by the Satan-tinged liberal mainstream culture, then what is the real endgame for either party? Does anyone really think the young LDS is going to cave and say, "Oh, yeah, all my gay friends actually *are* tools of the devil, and homosexuality is a grave perversion of the Gospel." Instead, the youth is going to say, "Adios!" DCP et al. will get to go on feeling that they are in the right and morally superior/wiser, but the Church will have one less person--one less *young* person--to count on the membership rolls. If you look at the roster of people involved with Mormon Interpreter, really only Stephen Smoot seems to be the only youthful person they've managed to recruit to the cause. Further, the people the apologists have been attacking the most viciously lately are younger LDS scholars. What happens if these people are driven out of the Church? Is that a victory for classic-FARMS? Or is it a devastating loss for the LDS Church?


On a sidenote: I will say that it's been really interesting to watch the classic-FARMS guys lean ever more heavily on Ralph "The Doink" Hancock. Do they think he brings a higher level of credibility, respectability, and sophistication? Or do they think he's going to be the key to luring in that "whale" donor who'll kick 100K+ into Mormon Interpreter? He's certainly arguing in much the same vein as Hamblin and Peterson, including a recent long, rambling essay that seems to seriously distort/misrepresent some of Terryl Givens's commentary on the Ben Park affair.

[_Maksutov]

On a sidenote: I will say that it's been really interesting to watch the classic-FARMS guys lean ever more heavily on Ralph "The Doink" Hancock. Do they think he brings a higher level of credibility, respectability, and sophistication? Or do they think he's going to be the key to luring in that "whale" donor who'll kick 100K+ into Mormon Interpreter? He's certainly arguing in much the same vein as Hamblin and Peterson, including a recent long, rambling essay that seems to seriously distort/misrepresent some of Terryl Givens's commentary on the Ben Park affair.

The emphasis moving to prettier faces like Bednar and Hancock would be one of the first recommends from a PR firm. Not that LDS institutions are ever influenced by PR firms. DCP and Hamblin are (sorry, guys) just not things of beauty these days. It may be superficial but superficial sells.

[_ludwigm]

pic pic
Those Great and Spacious Buildings all look alike...

I have had that all.

If...

[_cwald]

Thanks for the update.

Keep us posted.

[_Quixotequest]

I'm Tim's friend and was invited to write why I think the LDS church is following a "15-year" transition strategy that will "throw under the bus" the current crop of members struggling to process the change.

To explain my thoughts without being too complicated, the first step is to see PR not as a strategy or an "end", but as a family of tactics—a means to accomplish higher level corporate reputation and crisis management strategies. The next step: There are several theoretical models for crisis comm management, but one way this can be expressed is by this diagram (from the Situation Theory of Publics):

( 4. Active Public ) ↴ (2a)
(high awareness, low constraint perception)
↕
( 3. Aware Public ) ↴ (2a)
(high awareness, high constraint perception)
⇧
( 2. Latent Public ) ↔ ( 2a. Apathetic Public)
(low awareness..............................(higher awareness,
low constraint perception)................ low level of care)
⇧
( 1. Non-Public )
(low awareness, high constraint perception)

My analysis is that since the LDS organization has reached a crisis point where they have not communicated sooner and a more effective way to influence the tones and themes of the dialog, they have not kept Aware Publics from dramatically escalating to Active Publics. (The org has largely been monological with an "old school" approach of treating publics as hostile by nature.) As such to deescalate an Active Public to an Aware Public they will have to grant a higher stakeholder privilege to these publics (granting them more residual power, legitimacy and urgency). Or they can try to create higher perception of constraints.

Constraints are difficult to impose, but obviously as a strategy they can demonstrate power through sanction, and/or delegitimization. The risk in deescalation from Active Publics to Aware Publics is that they have more empowered and legitimized stakeholders as a result if constraints are not effective enough (a high possibility given the nature of the crisis).

Some corporations pursue this course of crisis deescalation more actively through increased transparency, dialogical communication, CSR, more explicit reputation management, etc., thus creating higher expectations and accountability—and also higher "capital" of social legitimization. (This is the more admirable course, in my view and, while fraught with challenges, has much brand "payoff".)

However should an org want to deescalate differently they can (and likely will) also pursue simultaneous to constraint creation and delegitimization the movement toward creating an Apathetic Public. Coupled with this they can reduce power and urgency to create a marginally (by comparison) stakeholder public that is discretionary in its legitimacy—or a non-stakeholder public altogether. As such the org can maintain more opaqueness, power, and less social accountability. (Stakeholder Salience is addressed more at length at http://bit.ly/1sVAfgw)

An Apathetic Public requires time to create because issue awareness will still be maintained—thus the well-discussed perspective about the essays serving as an "inoculation" strategy. As such my opinion is that 15 years is required to allow time for organizational culture adaptation and "kicking the can" as the expectations for Generation Z take more shape. Those LDS persons who do not respond to deescalation through efforts at delegitimization and higher constraint creation necessarily become the collateral expense for pursuing the longer term Apathetic Public strategy.

--Bryan

I have a friend who is studying Global Communications in graduate school. He took one look at the beta Mormon.org site and its description of polygamy as "inappropriate" and said "they are taking a 15 year communications strategy and have decided to throw this generation's doubters under the bus."

[Guest]

I'm Tim's friend and was invited to write why I think the LDS church is following a "15-year" transition strategy that will "throw under the bus" the current crop of members struggling to process the change.

{SNIP}

An Apathetic Public requires time to create because issue awareness will still be maintained—thus the well-discussed perspective about the essays serving as an "inoculation" strategy. As such my opinion is that 15 years is required to allow time for organizational culture adaptation and "kicking the can" as the expectations for Generation Z take more shape. Those LDS persons who do not respond to deescalation through efforts at delegitimization and higher constraint creation necessarily become the collateral expense for pursuing the longer term Apathetic Public strategy.

--Bryan

Hey Bryan,

Thanks for dropping in. Always great to have domain experts take the time to explain this stuff.

Assuming I actually understand you correctly (after reading your explanation of terms and concepts several times), it looks as if the LDS Church has a long, hard road ahead, and may need to continue to re-define such terms as truth and success (as it has in the past) in order to have any chance of achieving success with an "Apathetic Pubic strategy".