When Good Mormon Men Go Bad

[_Jason Bourne]

Dr W. all I can do is speak from the experiences in both the ward and stake I grew up in and the one in which I now live. What you report never would have happened in either.

In my home stake the SP committed adultery and was excommunicated. It was a long six years or more till he was back in and part of that was reconciling with his wife and her forgiveness. Also a BR counselor in my ward committed adultery and was excommunicated and never made it back.

When I was a bishop I had a number of situations like this where due to priesthood levels I had to send the issues to the SP. again it resulted in excommunication. In both cases we worked close with the wronged wives and offered emotional and financial assistance. I here stories like yours here and there but have never witnessed such things in my 52 years.

[_Jason Bourne]

MightyBuilder is Salt Lake City. You are Toronto. He speaks from the heart of the beast. You speak from its little finger.

What I related above, my ward and stake of my youth was in the SLC area. Where I am now is far from there.

[_harmony]

Well, I live in the middle of nowhere, and my ward has never seen such a thing as the OP describes. And neither has my stake (since our gossip chain works very well here).

[_DrW]

Jason,

I have not been very active on this board until fairly recently and did not realize that you are a former Bishop. Good to know.

Please don't get me wrong. I have known and worked with a lot of great folks who were, and still are, LDS. And I have lived in wards, especially in rural areas, where the kind of behavior I described in the OP was unheard of.

Nonetheless, when a Stake High Councilman transgresses and thereafter behaves in the way I described in the OP, it can, and does, negatively impact hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people.

A lot of the negative impact is because of unrealistic expectations, to be sure. But it is the organization and its teachings that set and reinforce these expectations.

[_LDSToronto]

Jason,

I have not been very active on this board until fairly recently and did not realize that you are a former Bishop. Good to know.

Please don't get me wrong. I have known and worked with a lot of great folks who were, and still are, LDS. And I have lived in wards, especially in rural areas, where the kind of behavior I described in the OP was unheard of.

Nonetheless, when a Stake High Councilman transgresses and thereafter behaves in the way I described in the OP, it can, and does, negatively impact hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people.

A lot of the negative impact is because of unrealistic expectations, to be sure. But it is the organization and its teachings that set and reinforce these expectations.

DrW, let me preface and say this is a general commentary and not aimed at you.

When it comes to these matters, I think people should mind their own business. My feelings about the church aside, people expect confidentiality and expect others to respect that confidentiality. While I may not believe, those that go to a bishop or stake president are there because they have some faith in the ecclesiastical authority that is held by the church office.

I've seen this from both sides - I've watched the stake president deal with adulterous men and I've watched the wives of those men and the friends of the wives of those men start false rumours about what is really happening to those men. The truth is, the stake president can't just convene a disciplinary council and kick the adulterer out of the church. He usually has to meet with the accused, with the wife of the accused, and then over the course of a number of interviews, he will determine if he should proceed with a council. I've seen this take months.

Let me offer up another example of the power of rumours. A few years ago, the bishop of a ward and a high councilor who attended the same ward reported an inactive member to the stake presidency, accusing this fellow of living in a homosexual relationship. Almost every two weeks the high councilor would ask me if we were going to convene a disciplinary committee, because the whole ward was talking about how this man was being allowed to live in a sinful relationship.

Well, the stake president looked into the matter, and was shocked by what he found. After visiting with the man, the SP determined that there was no homosexual relationship going on - rather, what was discovered was that an active member lived down the street from this man. The active member observed the inactive member moving into this home, a home owned by a non-member, single male, and jumped to the conclusion that the two were lovers. As it turns out, neither is gay, the inactive member was simple renting a basement apartment. The bishop didn't bother to check out the validity of the rumour and escalated the matter for disciplinary action.

I guess my point is that people get themselves worked up all the time when they don't have all the facts. Jilted wives are never satisfied - some want their husbands ex'd and executed and get extremely angry when they don't see things progressing as fast as they feel they should.

H.

[_Jason Bourne]

Jason,

I have not been very active on this board until fairly recently and did not realize that you are a former Bishop. Good to know.

Please don't get me wrong. I have known and worked with a lot of great folks who were, and still are, LDS. And I have lived in wards, especially in rural areas, where the kind of behavior I described in the OP was unheard of.

Nonetheless, when a Stake High Councilman transgresses and thereafter behaves in the way I described in the OP, it can, and does, negatively impact hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people.

A lot of the negative impact is because of unrealistic expectations, to be sure. But it is the organization and its teachings that set and reinforce these expectations.

I certainly did not mean to imply that such results as what you describe are not without severe repurcussions to many members especially as you note, due to very high expectations the Church places on it's members. I also would note such behavior is crummy from any person, LDS or not.

[_DrW]

LDSToronto,

While I will take you at your word that your comments were not aimed at me specifically, they would certainly include me. So I trust that you will not take offense at my response.

Perhaps the next level of detail will help you understand a bit better why I take the position I do and why I think I have the right to bring up and discuss these issues.

In the first instance I mentioned, my wife and I ended up taking the wife and two daughters into our home for a short time after they were forced to leave their home through no fault of her own. Thereafter, one of the teenage children lived with us for a period of time. During her stay with us this girl she lost her father, her little brother, her home and probably her opportunity for a college education. My wife and I can, and have, backfilled some small part of that, but nobody can backfill it all.

In one of the other instances referred to in the OP (among those that I did not mention specifically), my wife and I ended up providing monthly financial support to the wife and children because the father and his new girlfriend refused to do so.

I maintain that when such instances affect me and my family directly, whether personally, financially, or simply emotionally, that I have a right, and perhaps even an obligation, to speak out.

I trust that you will understand that not everyone's experience with the Church and Church members is the same as yours and that you will take these comments in the spirit intended.

[_quaker]

A former bishop in my first ward committed adultery. He was excommunicated and 15 years later he was rebaptized. It was as simple of an affair as possible, no real complications besides the obvious reactions from those he affected. In the same ward a couple became very antagonistic apostates and then the husband took off on the wife leaving two children behind. The husband had served a mission after converting in the 90s.

In a different branch a former branch president committed adultery and took off with another woman, leaving his kids behind and his wife with nothing.

Two other men also committed adultery. One began living a homosexual lifestyle with his new partner but maintains a good relationship with his children and ex-wife. Another had no children, divorced his wife and took off with a gay lover. I think this was not a surprise to the wife, who was not satisfied in the relationship. This man was a return missionary. The first instance was a surprise to the wife.

Those experiences are all I've heard. Nothing extremely scandalous except the one with the former branch president leaving the wife and kids, and the apostate one. I don't know if you can call any of them 'good Mormon' men. They were all adult converts as were the people in their congregations, so the culture of the church and the gospel were not understood to the extent of someone who grows up in the church surrounded by good examples. If you've ever lived outside Utah in rural areas with only 1 or 2 converts who served missions to lead the congregations, you know they are not the same as well established mature LDS congregations.

[_LDSToronto]

I trust that you will understand that not everyone's experience with the Church and Church members is the same as yours and will take these comments in the spirit intended.

Of course.

I guess I'm a little confused by your OP. At first I thought you were taking an "in general" approach - that is, in general, powerful people get to rule the roost.

Then I thought you were talking about how, in general, there is much collateral when high ranking officers transgress. I got that impression when you said this -

Nonetheless, when a Stake High Councilman transgresses and thereafter behaves in the way I described in the OP, it can, and does, negatively impact hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people.

That quote is what drove my comments, not your personal experiences, hence the disclaimer. Also, I didn't realize that this was such a personal, close to home issue for you. I re-read the OP and nothing indicated that you were supporting these families. Perhaps I misread the emotion in your words. My apologies.

But, I like you, DrW., and I am sensing that this may be a sensitive topic for you. I'm not church defender, trust me, so I'll wait a couple of posts and see where you were really going with this topic before I comment again.

H.

[_DrW]

LDSToronto,

Thank you for your comments. I think you have it about right and will be the first to admit that my OP and subsequent posts on this thread have been a bit of a rant. So they may have been somewhat lacking in focus.