https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/11 ... do-latter/Chad Ford is a BYU-Hawaii professor, a professional mediator, and even a commentator and analyst for ESPN. To that list we can also add “author.” His new book “Dangerous Love: Transforming Fear and Conflict at Home, at Work, and in the World” offers readers tools to navigate the inevitable conflict in their lives.
Why can't we just put our unresolved questions and faith crisis items on the shelf?
Why does the Church promote putting things on the shelf then?Ford • It’s called conflict avoidance — sweeping something under the rug, pretending it isn’t there. It’s wearing a mask that on the outside looks pure and holy. This is a consistent theme you hear again and again from Latter-day Saints, this idea that conflict is of the devil. That there is something unholy and shameful about conflict, and if I was really holy, I wouldn’t experience it.
That’s really self-defeating. If there is conflict in my life or in my family or community, I don’t want the world to know that. So that makes it harder for LDS people to seek out help from therapists or mediators.
Sometimes we also do conflict accommodation, especially among women: “If there’s no way for me to avoid this conflict, the righteous or holy thing is for me to give in.” That’s the default move if they can’t avoid conflict altogether, because it seems meek and humble, and we like our martyrdom. The problem is that it only works in short-term settings. When things are really important and we constantly push conflict aside, a gulf builds up and eventually it will break. As a long-term conflict strategy, accommodation will not work.
Church Leaders are telling young people to doubt their doubts, put things on the shelf as they will be resolved in the next life. Is that good advice?Ford • The LDS Church is structured around patriarchal and hierarchical authority. One thing that’s drilled into us from a young age is that if someone above us in the hierarchy gets a revelation, it’s not appropriate for us to push back. That person has keys or authority to make decisions, so when they make decisions, our job is to follow. I don’t believe that’s necessarily doctrinally what we believe, but that’s what we do culturally.
So Church Leaders are pursuing a strategy to keep people in the Church that is actually counter productive to a persons well being and also contributes to people leaving the Church acrimoniously. Hmmm...divinely inspired?Ford • I’ll start with faith crisis. As a university professor working with young Latter-day Saints, many are going through a faith crisis. Think about our unhealthy approaches: We ignore it, we hide it. This makes young people afraid to talk about it with their friends or parents. Parents may feel shame about it.
So we start mistreating each other: We’re not open to their questions and concerns, and we don’t create space to have collaborative problem-solving. We think there’s something inherently wrong with asking questions, instead of seeing questions as a way to go deeper with faith. I see this all the time with my students and in my own family.
Because I’m teaching this stuff, they end up seeking me out because they feel I’m a safe place to talk about it. I’m very clear that I’m a practicing member of the church, but I’m not threatened by their questions. And that extends out to so many other questions, like the Word of Wisdom, women in the church, or LGBTQ+ issues. We aren’t good yet at talking about these issues in a healthy way. So we leave young people with two choices: to either shut up and accommodate, even though it hurts, or to leave and become a fierce critic of the church. Those outcomes to me are both tragic outcomes.
