Eugene Englund and room 101 of the SCMC

[_Gadianton]

Eugene Englund, a tempered defender of the Mormon church who is affiliated with both FARMS and FAIR has been cited many times in shock and horror over learning of the existence of the SCMC, the secretive intelligence arm of the Church which gathers photographs, letters, emails, newspaper clippings, and other personal information on wavering members, packages the body of evidence, and ships by priority mail to the member's local leaders for swift disciplinary action.

According to the mysterious and ever-reliable master of all facts Mormon, Justin Butterfield in an article that disappeared from the net as quicly as it premiered states,

Then-BYU professor of English Eugene England responded to Anderson’s charges by saying, among other things, “I accuse that committee of undermining the Church.” He also asked those attending the symposium session to lobby the church to disband the committee.

A few months later, as is well-known, brother England apologized for his reaction in a letter to the editor of Sunstone. He wrote,

I am sorry that I spoke out so rashly and angrily—and before I learned more about the Committee or spoke privately to its members about my concerns.

Fine. We've all overreacted at some point in our lives, no?

But he continues,

Yet in my accusations I violated those same ideals [domocratic ideals etc.]—with what I recognize now was a desire for revenge on those whom I though..

Please, the self-analysis here is digging a little deep is it not? Violating the ideals of democracy and so forth just for speaking out honestly in a moment of anger upon learning of a conspiricy within the organization he's devoted his life to? Was he in the wrong? Perhaps, but he was by no means the villain he's now portraying himself as. A criminal on a revenge campaign. Please!

invite my colleagues at BYU—and all in the Mormon community as a whole to refrain from criticizing our leaders

A simple or thorough apology apparently was not enough, brother Englund continues on by echoing the call of Mormon leadership for everyone everywhere to refrain from ever "criticizing the brethren".

And finally,

I suggest we all report in detail to Committee Members Elders James E. Faust and Russell M. Nelson what is happening to us

"Do not hesitate, report everything at once to the brethren!"

We might be able to report if it were not for the fact that the current membership of this committee is not known. It would appear, unless one has been tapped, there would be no way to communicate with the committee at all. We do know the committee uses contractors, special agents for special projects including arranged confrontations with wavering members. But in some cases, apparently, the confrontation may be stepped up a notch. Let's go back to the first Brother Englund quote I provided,

I am sorry that I spoke out so rashly and angrily—and before I learned more about the Committee or spoke privately to its members about my concerns.

Under what conditions did this private "conversation" take place? We may never know the answer to this question, and the content of this conversation or meeting may forever remain a matter of conjecture. Was Brother Englund threatened? Intimidated? "Encouraged"? Whatever took place in this specially arranged meeting with the ghostly emissaries of the SCMC certainly brought brother Englund into a pefect "one-eighty".

Brother Englund's "repentence" to the ministry of love is not partial, it is in fact reminiscent of the change of heart Winston Smith -- the protagonist in George Orwell's 1984 -- underwent. Like Winston, Eugene, out of his own free and democratically liberated will, loves Big Brother.

---

A replica of the famous SCMC article by Justin Butterfield

[_cksalmon]

Eugene Englund, a tempered defender of the Mormon church who is affiliated with both FARMS and FAIR has been cited many times in shock and horror over learning of the existence of the SCMC, the secretive intelligence arm of the Church which gathers photographs, letters, emails, newspaper clippings, and other personal information on wavering members, packages the body of evidence, and ships by priority mail to the member's local leaders for swift disciplinary action.

According to the mysterious and ever-reliable master of all facts Mormon, Justin Butterfield in an article that disappeared from the net as quicly as it premiered states,

Then-BYU professor of English Eugene England responded to Anderson’s charges by saying, among other things, “I accuse that committee of undermining the Church.” He also asked those attending the symposium session to lobby the church to disband the committee.

A few months later, as is well-known, brother England apologized for his reaction in a letter to the editor of Sunstone. He wrote,

I am sorry that I spoke out so rashly and angrily—and before I learned more about the Committee or spoke privately to its members about my concerns.

Fine. We've all overreacted at some point in our lives, no?

But he continues,

Yet in my accusations I violated those same ideals [domocratic ideals etc.]—with what I recognize now was a desire for revenge on those whom I though..

Please, the self-analysis here is digging a little deep is it not? Violating the ideals of democracy and so forth just for speaking out honestly in a moment of anger upon learning of a conspiricy within the organization he's devoted his life to? Was he in the wrong? Perhaps, but he was by no means the villain he's now portraying himself as. A criminal on a revenge campaign. Please!

invite my colleagues at BYU—and all in the Mormon community as a whole to refrain from criticizing our leaders

A simple or thorough apology apparently was not enough, brother Englund continues on by echoing the call of Mormon leadership for everyone everywhere to refrain from ever "criticizing the brethren".

And finally,

I suggest we all report in detail to Committee Members Elders James E. Faust and Russell M. Nelson what is happening to us

"Do not hesitate, report everything at once to the brethren!"

We might be able to report if it were not for the fact that the current membership of this committee is not known. It would appear, unless one has been tapped, there would be no way to communicate with the committee at all. We do know the committee uses contractors, special agents for special projects including arranged confrontations with wavering members. But in some cases, apparently, the confrontation may be stepped up a notch. Let's go back to the first Brother Englund quote I provided,

I am sorry that I spoke out so rashly and angrily—and before I learned more about the Committee or spoke privately to its members about my concerns.

Under what conditions did this private "conversation" take place? We may never know the answer to this question, and the content of this conversation or meeting may forever remain a matter of conjecture. Was Brother Englund threatened? Intimidated? "Encouraged"? Whatever took place in this specially arranged meeting with the ghostly emissaries of the SCMC certainly brought brother Englund into a pefect "one-eighty".

Brother Englund's "repentence" to the ministry of love is not partial, it is in fact reminiscent of the change of heart Winston Smith -- the protagonist in George Orwell's 1984 -- underwent. Like Winston, Eugene, out of his own free and democratically liberated will, loves Big Brother.

---

A replica of the famous SCMC article by Justin Butterfield

I think it obvious that England was unaware of the SCMC at the time of his initial statement. His reaction is indicative, I'd suggest, of the compartmentalization of the LDS hierarchy (not necessarily the inherent "hiddenness" of same).

The only way I can think to explain England's initial revulsion is to posit that he was simply unaware of the Church-sanctioned Committee. His initial apprisal was, I'd think, an honest one.

Fast forward.

Once made aware of the Church-sanctioned nature of SCMC, he backed down. "I didn't know whereof I spoke...," essentially.

I take his initial reaction to be a more gut-level, more useful, more objective commentary on SCMC than his later--correlated (one might say)--statement.

I take this as emblematic of the fact that certain operational aspects of the LDS hierarchy are largely hidden, in a de facto, rather than intrinsic sense, from the view of those LDS scholars outside the LDS apologetic machinery.

It's not so weird that he would reverse course. What's weird is that he was "in the dark," at least until his negative statements were uttered--after which he was surely apprised of the "official," Church-sanctioned nature of SCMC.

I think, at the least, we might give him props for being outside the loop to such a degree that he would actually (at least initially) condemn, albeit ignorantly, the Committee's status.

[_truth dancer]

This makes me sad.

It reminds me of the many times as a believer I tried to squash my own beliefs to try to embrace those of the leaders.

It reminds me of the many times as a believer I tried to make horrible things seem good, and good things seem horrible.

Aside from the weirdness of the SCMC, what is more disconcerting is the threats, the manipulation, the coercion that goes on; ultimately don't challenge the brethren. Don't question them. Don't doubt them. Don't share a different opinion.

It is just sad. :-(

~dancer~

[_Ray A]

This brings a reminder of the excommunication of Michael J. Barrett in 1994, in the wake of the excommunications of the September Six. Barrett wrote many letters to newspaper editors in what he felt was a more honest approach to Mormon history, "tell it like it was" accounts. His letter-writing may possibly have been brought to attention of local leaders by the SCMC.

Church officials do not dispute the accuracy of Barrett's letters to The Times' Westside Section and to newspapers as far afield as London, England, and Calgary, Alberta. Rather, it was his defiance of orders to stop his letter-writing campaign that got him in trouble.

The letters generally included statements of loyalty to the faith. But Barrett would always slip in zingers that could only irritate Church leaders who oppose the airing of embarrassing historical tidbits. Among his topics were the Church's former ban against admitting African American men to its priesthood, an honor held by males above the age of puberty.

The reversal of that rule in 1978 "implicitly labeled three of our prophets . . . as purveyors of false doctrine," he wrote in a letter to the editor of the Westside Section of The Times.

"The Church took umbrage at that one," the 48-year-old Barrett said. "They were very offended that anybody would point out that any of their prophets had erred." (Emphasis added)

http://www.lds-mormon.com/excom.shtml

Some members were privately supportive of Barrett, but others were of the opinion that:

Church higher-ups weren't the only ones irritated by Barrett's letters. Even some parishioners who say they are his friends bridled at his writings.

"We're allowed to believe whatever we want, but when you write letters or give speeches saying . . . that the Church is wrong, then you've crossed the line," Kathryn H. Kidd of Sterling said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "These people have crossed the line."

[_moksha]

Could we imagine someone bad mouthing the KGB and some while after (once the bruising had subsided and the scar formation finalized) sing the praises of the KGB and perhaps renounce the enemies of the state?

So Eugene England did not realize how wonderful a small "clipping service" was the first time, eh?

[_Nevo]

Was Brother Englund threatened? Intimidated? "Encouraged"? Whatever took place in this specially arranged meeting with the ghostly emissaries of the SCMC certainly brought brother Englund into a pefect "one-eighty". Brother Englund's "repentence" to the ministry of love is not partial, it is in fact reminiscent of the change of heart Winston Smith -- the protagonist in George Orwell's 1984 -- underwent. Like Winston, Eugene, out of his own free and democratically liberated will, loves Big Brother.

Brother England recounted this episode in his essay, "On Spectral Evidence, Scapegoating, and False Accusation":

An even more painful experience occurred in the summer of 1992. This time I felt the pain of being both victim and perpetrator of spectral evidence and found myself, though unaware of it at the time, actually criticizing the Brethren. If I had thought a little more calmly at that time, I would have recognized the universal and almost irresistible tendency, when a variety of tensions and mutual offenses are growing like a plague, for all the fear and anxiety suddenly to focus on a scapegoat. . . .

It happened this way: Lavina Fielding Anderson gave a presentation at the August 1992 Sunstone Symposium on how we might go about healing the breach that seemed to be growing between church authorities and Mormon intellectuals and feminists. My anxiety and pain increased during her catalogue of events I knew about and in which I knew people had been badly hurt, hurt at the heart of their faith, and I suddenly became convinced that the Strengthening Church Members Committee (which I had recently heard about from a BYU administrator) was behind most of those events. My general hurt and fear focused in anger, and during the question-and-answer period I accused the committee of undermining the church and invited the audience to use their influence to stop it.

I had in mind that people would write to church leaders they knew and that thus the committee, which I assumed was ad hoc and mid-management, would be quietly discontinued. But in my heart was also a desire to punish, and the powers of darkness were glad to oblige--that is, the natural laws of reciprocal violence that are always unleashed by growing, unresolved animositites based on spectral evidence and by the scapegoating that suddenly focuses that growing plague. Television cameras captured and replayed the scene on the news; an Associated Press reporter went right out, called the church spokesman, and got a confirmation of the existence of the committee and some of its activities in question, which was reported nationwide.

Meanwhile I went home to Provo in a welter of emotions (still angry, sometimes glad, even a bit self-righteous about speaking out, but then doubtful, increasingly aware that I had violated the principle that offenses should be dealt with personally and privately). As the publicity continued, much of it negative, I felt much anguish; I remembered a comment to me the night after the Sunstone session from one in the audience who may have been alluding to my recent book, The Quality of Mercy: "Well that was brave, but it wasn't very merciful." Indeed, I felt like a hypocrite, and when I learned from the First Presidency statement the next week that the committee consisted of two apostles, James E. Faust and Russell M. Nelson, I felt despair that I had, however unwittingly, criticized them and possibly invited others to do so. I immediately wrote an apology to them, at the same time doing what I should have done before if I had been patient enough to find out how: I told them directly and personally what concerned me about the committee's actions as I now understood them, of the hurt I felt those actions had caused me and others I knew. . . .

When Young Goodman Brown is convinced that his wife, Faith, whom he foolishly left behind that night, is present at the devilish Sabbath, he suddenly finds himself alone, the evil vision gone, and Hawthorne asks the reader to consider whether he had "fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch meeting." Whatever the case, the gloom that darkens his life from then on is his inverted "faith" in spectral evidence. Hawthorne turns the issue to the reader, to me and you: "Be it so if you will." We must choose whether to believe in divine wholeness and potential of people or in the reductive partiality of spectral evidence. Levin reminds us of the personal and social implications of this psychological allegory: "Hawthorne condemns that graceless perversion of true Calvinism which, in universal suspicion, actually led a community to the unjust destruction of twenty men and women."

It is just such a "graceless perversion" of honorable motives and of true Mormonism and true Americanism that I fear is increasing now in our church and nation--and may yet lead to much destruction of faith and love, in addition to the pain many already feel. I feel the fear so deeply in part because I have felt in my bones what it is like to be part of the perversion. Between my "outburst" (as the AP reporter rightly called it) on August 6 and my day of humiliation and repentance on October 3, I went through another shift in perspective.

On the one hand I became conscious that people in the church, even in an organized way, were willing, in the name of honorable ends, to use hearsay evidence to judge, hurt, intimidate, and even punish people. Perhaps most troubling of all, I learned that others, even though disagreeing with such means, were willing to stand by and let those things happen, even participate to some extent.

On the other hand I became more fully aware that I could participate in the same kind of activity--with gusto. In my own hurt and desire for revenge I could use spectral evidence to judge and try to punish people, even risking harm to the church I believe is as true as the gospel and risking violation of my sacred covenants and deepest commitments.

-- Eugene England, Making Peace: Personal Essays (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 36-40.

Nothing here suggests that Brother England was "threatened" or "intimidated" by the SCMC. He says that he almost immediately began to have doubts about speaking out publicly--realizing that he had "violated the principle that offenses should be dealt with personally and privately"--and that this quickly turned to "anguish" as the story gained traction in the press and began to embarrass the Church. He was worried that he had brought harm to the Church and had possibly violated his temple covenants--which speaks to the depth of his commitment to the Church.

[_Gadianton]

Nothing here suggests that Brother England was "threatened" or "intimidated" by the SCMC.

I wouldn't expect him to admit it Nevo. I don't think essays of Winston Smith's would have told us much directly about the real nature of Oceana after his conversion.

[_Mister Scratch]

Nothing here suggests that Brother England was "threatened" or "intimidated" by the SCMC. He says that he almost immediately began to have doubts about speaking out publicly--realizing that he had "violated the principle that offenses should be dealt with personally and privately"--and that this quickly turned to "anguish" as the story gained traction in the press and began to embarrass the Church. He was worried that he had brought harm to the Church and had possibly violated his temple covenants--which speaks to the depth of his commitment to the Church.

Nevo---

I think you have to consider the very title of England's essay. Did he title it, "The Most Accurate and Objective Account I Can Provide"? I don't think so. Instead, it is very, very clear that he was "guilt-tripped" into issuing this mea culpa. Whether this came about due to some element of his own, personal nature, or whether it was in some way coerced is anybody's guess. As Gadianton is quite right to point out: given the context (i.e., the LDS Church) we cannot know for certain whether this was England's own, completely independently formulated viewpoint, or whether, to paraphrase Mr. Salmon, it had been "correlated."

In any event, the key passage seems to be this:

Meanwhile I went home to Provo in a welter of emotions (still angry, sometimes glad, even a bit self-righteous about speaking out, but then doubtful, increasingly aware that I had violated the principle that offenses should be dealt with personally and privately). As the publicity continued, much of it negative, I felt much anguish;RIGHT HERE I remembered a comment to me the night after the Sunstone session from one in the audience who may have been alluding to my recent book, The Quality of Mercy: "Well that was brave, but it wasn't very merciful." Indeed, I felt like a hypocrite, and when I learned from the First Presidency statement the next week that the committee consisted of two apostles, James E. Faust and Russell M. Nelson, I felt despair that I had, however unwittingly, criticized them and possibly invited others to do so. I immediately wrote an apology to them, at the same time doing what I should have done before if I had been patient enough to find out how: I told them directly and personally what concerned me about the committee's actions as I now understood them, of the hurt I felt those actions had caused me and others I knew. . . .

(bolded insertion added)

I have inserted the bolded "RIGHT HERE" in order to note what I believe is a caesura in England's train of thought. Now, one has to remember that Eugene England is an extremely well-read and bright individual. Arguably, he is one of the most-admired of all liberal TBMs. And yet, despite his vast knowledge of dramatic an narrative literature in English, he deprives us of his key thought processes. He simply changes his mind---apparently out of the blue.

I ask you, Nevo: What in England's narrative convinces you that his "about-face" was in any way logical? Why did he change his mind? Why does he "feel like a hypocrite"? What, at base, has he done to merit his feelings of guilt?

I think that we need to back up a bit further, even, to this crucial line:

"(still angry, sometimes glad, even a bit self-righteous about speaking out, but then doubtful, increasingly aware that I had violated the principle that offenses should be dealt with personally and privately)"

Where is this codified in LDS doctrine---that "offenses should be dealt with personally and privately"???

Basically, this is the SCMC personified. The SCMC does not need to even be a real institution. The mere threat and mythology of its existence are enough to warp the minds of otherwise very conscientious and intelligent people such as Prof. England and Prof. Peterson (who stated that he agreed immediately to assist the SCMC after he received an out-of-the-blue telephone call from the SCMC secretary). The specter of this "Committee" is enough to persuade powerful Mormons to do all kinds of things.

[_The Nehor]

They got to him?!?!?!!?!?

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

[_Ray A]

Given Professor England's "track record", I'd say that he backed down because of his feelings of loyalty to The Brethren, and nothing else. I'd probably have done the same if I were in his position. Lavina Anderson hasn't backed down, though, and she paid for that with excommunication, which England obviously wasn't prepared to face. His loyalty to Mormonism went beyond his intellect, and that's why, in my opinion, he retracted earlier statements, not because they were untrue, or didn't make sense, but because he felt a greater loyalty to The Brethren.