2016 in Review: Television

Let’s talk TV.

Polygamy was a major interest of mine when it came to what I watched on the small screen during 2016. Melanie and I discovered three new—and, in the case of two of them, already cancelled—cable series about the polygamous lifestyle. First up was My Five Wives, a kind of post-religious, secular cousin of TLC’s Sister Wives. My Five Wives features a family who is no longer religious but whose polygamous beginnings were rooted in religious conviction. I mentioned this family when I wrote about my adventures at the Sunstone Symposium back in the summer. Like Sister Wives, this show focused on the day-to-day practicalities of living polygamy: the husband’s efforts to balance time between the wives, tensions that arise among the wives themselves, etc. The post-religious component of the show gave it a unique bent, one that resonated with me as a person who has gone through a significant faith transition. Unfortunately, the show was canceled after just one season.

Next up is Escaping Polygamy. This quickly became my favorite “reality TV” polygamy show, even though it is far more sensationalized than the others. It can be a bit over the top in that regard, but at the heart of the show is something genuinely fascinating. The series follows the efforts of three women, all of whom defected from polygamy as teenagers, as they help others to do the same. The most beguiling aspect of the show is that it strikes so close to home, both literally and figuratively. Though I wasn’t raised in polygamy, I spent nearly 40 years in the LDS Church from which these polygamist sects sprang. There are often surprising similarities between the polygamist groups and the LDS Church, culturally speaking, which mesmerizes me as an ex-Mormon. Additionally, so much of what takes place in the show happens in or very near Salt Lake City. It’s amazing the wild things that are secretly going on all around me, masked by a façade of pleasant valley suburban America. Of the three polygamy shows I discuss in this blog post, Escaping Polygamy is the only one that has not been discontinued.

The final polygamy show we watched was Polygamy, USA. It was featured on the National Geographic Channel, which means the tone was vastly different from the other polygamy shows I’ve mentioned. It was more of a legitimate documentary. I am a fan of documentaries, but this one sometimes felt like the educational videos I remember watching in school as a kid—very dry and very subdued. I was bored during some of the earlier episodes. However, I was sufficiently engrossed by the end of the season (which also marked the end of the series). Unlike any other reality TV series, Polygamy, USA focuses on those living loyally the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist lifestyle. The polygamists of Centennial Park broke away from the FLDS Church, the latter of which is what many Americans imagine when they hear the word “polygamy”—women in prairie dresses, strict obedience to church leaders, a strong sense of patriarchy, private communities, child brides, etc. Centennial Park is a slightly liberal version thereof, forbidding marriage to underage girls, placing the responsibility of choosing a spouse on the women rather than the men, and (clearly) allowing cameras into their otherwise isolated community. Want to see what it’s like for newlyweds to engage in awkward conversations where they are trying to learn some of the most basic facts about each other? This is a good show for you.

Most of the TV shows I discovered in 2016 had nothing to do with polygamy, of course. Let’s take a look at what I found.

WINNERS

Ash vs. Evil Dead
I was stoked when I learned that Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy would receive a sequel in the form of a television series. Ash vs. Evil Dead, which is as ridiculously hyperviolent as you’d expect, does not disappoint.

Making a Murderer
I know, I know. Making a Murderer is so 2015. Well, Melanie and I were late for the party. So what? We can see why the show was so compelling, and we’ll definitely be on board when Season 2 finally makes its premiere—whenever that will be.

Mr. Robot
I have mixed feelings about this show. I quite liked it whenever I watched an episode, but I rarely felt eager to watch it. Even now, Season 2 remains completely unwatched despite being on our DVR for months. Although it qualifies as a thriller, there is something very slow-moving about it. I think this is a case of the show being slightly better than it is enjoyable, if that makes sense.

Stranger Things
See, we’re not always late to the party. Like everyone else, we loved it. Melanie and I watched the series once on our own, and then again with our boys. They liked it, too. Win-win.

United States of Tara
We had to reach way back into the 2009 vault to watch this one. I don’t know what mental health experts or those with dissociative identity disorder would say about this dramedy, starring Toni Collette as a woman balancing DID with the typical challenges of suburbia. There’s always a risk of treating these topics poorly. Admittedly, there were outlandish aspects to the plot, especially near the end, but overall I quite enjoyed the series’ fairly brief three-season stint. That being said, it is the weakest of shows I am putting into the “Winner” category.

RUNNERS-UP: Flaked; Love; Master of None; Red Oaks.


ON THE FENCE

Casual
This is probably the least enjoyable show that I haven’t completely given up on. None of the main characters are likeable. I’ve watched this one only when I’ve somehow managed to catch up on others and don’t yet want to start something new.

Fuller House
Okay, let me explain. I wouldn’t say I like this show. But I’ve seen several episodes, and that’s just me being a forthright and honest guy. We tried it one night as a family, wondering if our kids would enjoy it. They kind of do, so we’ve had it on a few times. In all fairness, we haven’t even watched the full first season. We watched two episodes in July, and another three in November. Clearly, we’re not chomping at the bit.

The Man in the High Castle
This is a critically acclaimed show, and Melanie and I watched the first several episodes. We then lost touch with it. It’s another one of those shows that is pretty good, but just so slow and tranquil that it often puts me to sleep. Hence, I’ve never been super motivated to watch it.

Speechless
Speechless received positive press for putting a special-needs teenager—one who can’t speak, hence the name of the show—at the forefront. Unfortunately, the family around which the show revolves is not particularly likeable. The mother, played by Minnie Driver, is particularly obnoxious. Furthermore, the family as a whole hasn’t gelled in terms of who they are. Sometimes they come off as trailer trash, and sometimes they come off as domineering elitists. I honestly don’t know if we’re supposed to consider them good guys or bad guys. Sometimes such ambiguity is the strength of a show. Here, it just seems sloppy and ill-formed.


DUDS

12 Monkeys
The movie 12 Monkeys was great. I had high hopes for the TV show. I got through one episode and just didn’t want to continue with it. It wasn’t terrible. It just didn’t click with me.

Documentary Now!
Fred Armisen and Bill Hader in a mockumentary television series? Sounds like heaven! And that’s what I thought, until I watched the incredibly boring and unfunny first episode. I will probably give it another go sometime, but the humor in that first episode was just way, way, way too understated for my tastes.


The end.

More Thoughts on Polygamy, Pt. 3

The more I examine LDS doctrine as an ex-member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—commonly referred to as the Mormon Church—the less sense it makes. This surprises me because, for many years, I prided myself on being a rather reflective Mormon. I wouldn’t have thought I’d miss out on so many bizarre, problematic, improbable, outlandish, or blatantly nonsensical implications. In fact, I thought Mormonism was a particularly strong religion, philosophically speaking. And I guess I probably still think that of Mormonism, but I would make a distinction between Mormonism and LDS theology. The LDS Church believes its teachings simply are Mormonism. Why, they’ve even tried to prevent other sects from calling themselves Mormon, even when those sects trace their roots back to Joseph Smith and affirm the Book of Mormon as scripture. But Mormonism, to me, is something bigger than the LDS Church, and I don’t think the LDS Church is particularly good at practicing Mormonism. There is, from my perspective, a great deal of tension between the LDS Church and Mormonism, which is why some people such as myself who fall in love with Mormonism end up leaving the LDS Church when we realize the two don’t mesh. Put simply, the LDS Church doesn’t practice the Mormonism it purports to preach.

With my current interest in polygamy quite piqued, I have realized the explanations I was given in my youth for its practice are inadequate and unpersuasive. Now, there are numerous defenses of polygamy that have been offered over the years, many of which are quite familiar to the typical LDS person. I think they have all been shown to be problematic, based on historical and demographical inaccuracies, etc. But many of these—such as the idea that polygamy was a way to offer financial support to widows—are merely pointing to the supposed benefits of polygamy. They are not really explanations for why and how polygamy got started in the first place. As far as that goes, I know of only one explanation, and it is supported by official LDS scripture: Joseph Smith, the founding prophet of Mormonism, asked God about polygamy after seeing it in the Bible and was told that it was a divine law he would be required to obey if it was revealed and explained to him. That’s why polygamy got started, if you want the official LDS narrative.

There is a glaring problem here. The supposed revelation in which God explains polygamy and tells Joseph Smith he must obey it if it’s revealed to him has been canonized as LDS scripture. It’s section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. It’s something anybody can read. The logical implication is that every single person who reads the D&C is obligated to practice polygamy and that not doing so brings one under condemnation. Of course, Mormons actually believed this for several decades after the “revelation” was received. Early Mormon Apostle Heber C. Kimball taught, “You might as well deny ‘Mormonism,’ and turn away from it, as to oppose the plurality of wives. Let the Presidency of this Church, and the Twelve Apostles, and all the authorities unite and say with one voice that they will oppose the doctrine, and the whole of them will be damned.”¹ Meanwhile, Joseph F. Smith taught at the LDS Church’s 1878 general conference, “Some people have supposed that the doctrine of plural marriage was a sort of superfluity, or nonessential to the salvation or exaltation of mankind…. I want here to enter my solemn protest against this idea, for I know it is false.” And yet, despite the fact that anyone and everyone can now read D&C 132 and learn the “law” of plural marriage, the LDS Church today forbids its practice. Apparently, knowing the law is not sufficient for having to practice it—a notion that directly contradicts the official narrative for why polygamy ever got started in the first place.

Another problem: why did the requirement to practice polygamy extend beyond Joseph Smith when he was the only one to whom it was apparently revealed? Pretend for a moment that knowing about the law of plural marriage does obligate one to live it. As I’ve always heard and understood the story, God was warning Joseph that he was getting himself into something pretty serious and deep. It was like God was saying, “You know, Joe, once you open up this can of worms, there ain’t no going back. Are you sure you want to know about this stuff?” But if polygamy is such a sensitive, sacred, and touchy thing, why did Joseph’s curiosity have to kill the whole damn institutional cat? That is, why did the obligation to practice polygamy extend beyond the one person to whom it was initially revealed, beyond the one person who was supposedly willing to take upon himself such a burden? It doesn’t really add up.

But let’s go back to the fact that practicing polygamy, in this lifetime anyway, is now prohibited by the LDS Church. As I already suggested, this doesn’t make much sense given that anybody with an LDS Doctrine and Covenants can read about the law of polygamy, and knowing about the law of polygamy is supposedly what obligated Mormons to practice polygamy in the first place. As problematic as this is, let’s ignore it for a minute. Let us ask instead, why did the (official LDS) practice of polygamy come to an end? Much can be said about this, especially as it relates to politics and the desire for Utah to be granted statehood, but what is the official LDS narrative on the matter?

Again, we can turn to the D&C. In what is termed Official Declaration 1, LDS Church President Wilford Woodruff is quoted thusly: “The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. If we had not stopped it … confusion would reign throughout Israel, and many men would be made prisoners. This trouble would have come upon the whole Church, and we should have been compelled to stop the practice.” Woodruff proclaimed that if the Mormons continued to practice polygamy, it would come “at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice).” Never mind that, in times past, the Lord supposedly made allowances for ordinances to be performed outside of temples when circumstances required it. Never mind that, in the past, it was nearly a hallmark of being a true prophet that one would be persecuted, arrested, or both. Never mind that official LDS Church publications had previously declared, “It would be as easy for the United States to build a tower to remove the sun, as to remove polygamy, or the Church and kingdom of God.” Never mind that Woodruff himself had previously stated, “If we were to do away with polygamy ... then we must do away with prophets and Apostles, with revelation and the gifts and graces of the Gospel, and finally give up our religion altogether and turn sectarians…. We just can’t do that … come life or come death.” Never mind that LDS Church President John Taylor had also received a revelation, several years earlier, in which the Lord said of polygamy, “I have not revoked this law, nor will I, for it is everlasting, and those who enter into my glory must obey the conditions thereof, even so, Amen.”

To reiterate, the practice of polygamy was stopped, according to the official narrative, because it would cause too darn much harm to allow its continued practice.

How very ironic.

In total, polygamy was practiced in the LDS Church for approximately 60 years. It has since been practiced by various offshoots of the LDS Church for nearly twice that long. I’m not saying polygamy was a good thing during the time the LDS Church sanctioned its practice, but even if we ignore that particular time period, the harm that has been caused by polygamy ever since the LDS Church disavowed it has been monumental. Assassinations, welfare fraud, ostracizing, rape, incest, and the sexual exploitation of children are just some of the things you’ll find taking place within polygamist communities, some on a regular basis. Yes, these things also happen outside of polygamist communities, but within such communities these acts are frequently tied directly to the community’s beliefs, teachings, and culture. In the Kingston group, for example, church leaders believe their bloodline can be traced back to Jesus Christ and must be kept pure. Incestuous marriages are thus fairly common. A brief look at the FLDS Church reveals practices too disgusting and disturbing to be worth repeating. Given the official LDS narrative, then, it appears that God was okay instituting polygamy knowing these atrocities would be the result. However, God was willing to stop polygamy in order to spare Wilford Woodruff and other high-ranking church leaders from going to jail.

It sure pays to be among the elect, doesn’t it? Feel free to take a vomit break. I’ll wait.

It is indeed an outlandish story the LDS Church weaves. Polygamy was so important that Joseph Smith had to practice it. God couldn’t allow otherwise—even though God would indeed allow otherwise just 60 years later, when the practice thereof would be an inconvenience—even though it was actually quite an inconvenience when it was first practiced, but that’s precisely why God warned Joseph Smith that he was getting himself into something he couldn’t get himself out of—except that you actually can get out of it, if it’s going to cause a lot of harm—even though God’s making people practice polygamy in the first place has led to way more harm than would’ve occurred had God never forced Joseph to practice it in the first place—but, of course, God couldn’t allow Joseph not to practice it, given that He was revealing the law of polygamy to Joseph and once you know about it, you have to practice it, no matter what—except that you really don’t, apparently.

Etc., etc., ad absurdum, ad nauseum.

Ad nauseum, indeed.


¹ All quotations in this blog entry, except those from the LDS Doctrine and Covenants, are conveniently located at http://www.mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm#quotes. Those wishing for original sources may find them cited there.

More Thoughts on Polygamy, Pt. 2

I’ve had a lot of thoughts swimming around in my head about polygamy. Some of them I shared in my previous post, which was hastily written and published. I expect this post will be even more scattered than the last one. I’m just trying to capture some random thoughts and observations. Make of it what you will.

At the Sunstone Symposium, a woman said the following about why she and her family had chosen to leave the FLDS polygamous group around the time that Warren Jeffs came into power: “We left because we knew what was being taught didn’t match what was in the scriptures.” This isn’t an exact quote, but is as near as I can remember it. When I heard this, I could imagine many a Mormon nodding along, thinking this woman had acted so wisely to stick to the scriptures and not listen to anyone who tried to teach something counter to their message.

Oh, the irony! I honestly think one of the key reasons I became an unorthodox Mormon (back when I was still a member of the LDS Church) was my close study of the scriptures. More and more, I saw the modern LDS Church in opposition to the scriptures. Since leaving the LDS Church, these things stand out to me even more. Taking the Lord’s name in vain? That’s exactly what I see the LDS Church doing much of the time. Drawing near to God with their lips but otherwise denying Him? The LDS Church again. Calling bad things good and good things bad? You guessed it: the LDS Church. Trusting in the arm of flesh and denying the Holy Ghost? See also, LDS Church. False idols? Have I mentioned the LDS Church? But it goes beyond the principle-based stuff I’ve mentioned. Some teachings of the LDS Church are blatant and undeniable contradictions of what you find in scripture. To cite just one example, in LDS scripture, the Lord says, “Whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall … inherit the kingdom of God…. And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock” (3 Nephi 11:33, 40). Well, according to current LDS theology, you actually have to be baptized by the right people in order to inherit the kingdom of God, and being baptized by those people only allows you to inherit one-third of the kingdom of God, while truly inheriting all that the Father has requires being baptized by a Mormon, being confirmed a member of the LDS Church by a Mormon, dutifully attending LDS Church services, receiving the priesthood (if you have a penis) or pledging that someone with a penis will always rule over you (if you have a vagina), participating in sacred (but also secret) rituals within LDS temples, having your marriage sealed in an LDS temple by a Mormon, abstaining from alcohol, abstaining from tobacco, abstaining from tea, abstaining from coffee, not making unnecessary purchases on Sundays, giving 10% of your annual income to the LDS Church, and so on. (It also used to require having more than one wife—another rule that applies only to those with a penis.) Now what did 3 Nephi 11:40 say again? “And whoso shall declare more or less than [baptism and faith in Christ], and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil.” Yeah, well. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

Going back to polygamy, I guess it annoys me when I see Mormons acting like polygamists are nuts when they themselves are guilty of so many of the same things. I mentioned last time that one of the shows I’ve been watching lately is A&E’s Escaping Polygamy. The show focuses on people fleeing from the polygamist communities in which they live. I was surprised how many people who choose to abandon polygamy nevertheless retain their fundamental religious beliefs. It’s not uncommon for the person fleeing polygamy to express a genuine concern that, because of her (or, much less often, his) choice to leave, she is going to be damned to Hell. These people are suffering so intensely that they are willing to choose eternity in Hell over life in polygamy, here and now. Super sad. Anyway, one of the main people on the show who helps others to escape—and who escaped herself from the Kingston group several years earlier—is now LDS. Maybe I’m reading into things, but I swear I’ve seen her balk at some of the comments that these former polygamists make. Not that I completely blame her. It’s wild to hear someone who has escaped the FLDS community express the belief that Warren Jeffs is a true prophet. It seems insane. But the LDS Church has a prophet, and the typical member of the LDS Church is unwilling to doubt anything that the LDS prophet says or does. The underlying mentality is the same. No, I don’t think Thomas S. Monson is a monster, and I wouldn’t want to compare him to Warren Jeffs. That’s not my point. Rather, I am comparing the unwavering confidence in and deference to church leaders that exists in both the FLDS community and the LDS Church. Thank God—literally—that Monson isn’t like Jeffs. But that doesn’t mean the LDS attitude toward church leaders is any healthier than it is in the FLDS community, at least from what I can tell. And thus it annoys me to see an LDS person roll her eyes at the “absurdity” of what an FLDS person believes.

Speaking of retained beliefs, another moment from Escaping Polygamy that stands out in my memory is when a person who had fled the FLDS Church talked about her experience meeting Warren Jeffs. Other people on the show, who had left a different polygamist group, were asking her how it felt. You could tell they expected it not to be a pleasant experience, as though the woman would have or should have sensed Jeffs’ depravity or something. But this woman, despite leaving, still believes Jeffs is a prophet. And when she talked about meeting Jeffs and shaking his hand, she described the experience as one that involved a sense of peace in her prophet’s presence. This isn’t one of those times when an LDS person scoffed, so that’s not my point. But I found it very interesting. LDS often point to feelings of peace as evidence that something is true, because they regard a feeling of peace as more or less synonymous with the presence of the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost shows up and makes you feel peaceful precisely to inform you that something is true. That’s the Holy Ghost’s #1 job. So, in the LDS world, feelings of peace are markers of what is good and right. They play an essential role in gaining a personal testimony, to converting non-Mormons to the LDS Church (“Do you feel peaceful when I share my beliefs with you? You do!? Wonderful! That’s the Holy Ghost telling you my church is the one and only completely true church on the entire planet!”), and to living life in general (“I knew I should accept the job offer because I felt peaceful about it when I prayed for guidance, so now I know God wants me to take the job.”) Well, this ex-FLDS woman felt at peace when she met Warren Jeffs. How does that make any sense on the LDS model? It doesn’t, which means the typical LDS person will point the finger of blame at the woman herself. She was confused, or she fell prey to Satan’s trickery, or something. Just as the ex-FLDS woman probably “knows” it was the Spirit giving her those feelings, LDS folk “know” it wasn’t. Call it a win-win?

Probably the most poignant episode of Escaping Polygamy, for me, was one that aired only recently. It was about yet another woman who desired to leave the FLDS Church. She had a 13-year-old daughter that she hadn’t seen in three years, despite their both being FLDS. You see, the 13-year-old daughter, at the age of 10, had been selected to be part of the “United Order.” This gave the girl something of elite status, but it also removed her from her mother’s home and effectively severed their ties. As the mom described it, she (the mom herself) wasn’t “worthy” of seeing her daughter.

I was appalled. What kind of sick and twisted belief system would tell a mother she isn’t worthy of seeing her own child? The answer hit me like a ton of bricks: the LDS belief system. No, the LDS Church doesn’t literally and physically remove children from their parents just because the children are exceptionally righteous. Not in this life, anyway. But a key part of LDS theology is that, in the afterlife, families are together only in the celestial kingdom—the top bracket of the hereafter. Thus, as far as family relationships go, what the FLDS woman was experiencing today is exactly what the LDS Church teaches could happen to you tomorrow. Even if you’re a decent person, if your children are more “righteous” than you, it is quite possible that in the next life, they will be taken from you, to live with the elite class, and will no longer even be considered your children. You will not be worthy to go where they are, and you will be separated forevermore. Your children will literally be too good for you, and you will neither deserve nor be allowed to retain the title of mother or father.

I’m sorry, but this warrants profanity: fuck that.

Maybe I sound overdramatic, but this is some seriously sick shit. Few things about the LDS Church have hit me as hard as this realization. I’ve always known this was the doctrine of the LDS Church, but somehow it took seeing such an atrocity enacted in the here and now for me to grasp just how messed up of an idea it is. Had I not spent a few minutes being horrified before I saw the connection to LDS theology, I don’t know that it would have had the same effect. We’re desensitized to what we already know. LDS theology is so familiar to me, it’s hard to see it for what it is. That’s why leaving the LDS Church has been so eye-opening. The longer I’m away, the more certain things stand out to me and I can’t for the life of me believe I never noticed them or never realized they were so damn glaring.

Okay, I guess I’m going to turn this into a three-part series. The final thing I wanted to discuss takes things in a very different direction, so I might as well make it its own post. That’s not a bad thing. This three-part series will end up practically doubling the number of posts I’ve written this year. Yay!

More Thoughts on Polygamy, Pt. 1

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve become more interested lately in learning about polygamist groups that trace their heritage to Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of Mormonism. Over the summer, Melanie and I watched several reality TV shows about polygamy, and I can’t help but find the culture fascinating. Some of these shows are more sensationalistic than others—“reality” is a loose term when you’re talking about reality TV—but the presentation isn’t what grips me. Instead, I find myself completely captivated by the ways in which these polygamist groups mirror the culture in which I myself grew up as a member of the mainstream LDS Church. If you have no connection to the LDS Church and know little about Mormons other than their historical affiliation with polygamy, it may seem absurd that I could find the similarities between the groups that still practice polygamy and the LDS Church startling. But mainstream Mormons today are about as anti-polygamy as anyone, and the majority of them would be appalled to think their culture bears any resemblance to the “depraved” and “apostate” sects that still adhere to the doctrine of plural marriage. That’s the mentality I grew up with. But now, I continually find myself shaking my head in amazement at the similarities. It can be truly stunning.

I listed several of the similarities between mainstream LDS culture and polygamist cultures in my previous post, but I didn’t really elaborate on them. I was simply reporting some of the things I’d heard at Sunstone from former members of polygamist groups. In this post, I will elaborate on those points but also raise some new ones. I will also explain why I find lacking some of the typical responses LDS folk often given for why polygamy was ever practiced in the first place.

Let’s begin with the similarities.

Similarity #1: Suffering persecution is evidence that you belong to God’s true church
I don’t know how much actual persecution the average polygamist faces, nor the average Mormon. But Mormons are notorious for having a persecution complex. Often, they will equate anything in the world that doesn’t cohere with their values, beliefs, and/or desires as a kind of persecution. At the risk of exaggerating—though not by much—a Mormon might see the fact that the corner grocery store remains open on Sunday as a form of persecution. Less controversially, Mormons being the brunt of a joke on TV could be seen as persecution. Almost certainly, non-Mormon Utahans griping about the LDS Church’s stronghold on state politics, about the obnoxiousness of LDS neighbors, or other general complaining about the surrounding culture is regarded as persecution. Sure, most Mormons aren’t being tarred and feathered nowadays, but they are persistently mocked and ridiculed by outsiders, at least from their own perspective. And why is that? Because the LDS Church is Satan’s enemy #1. And why is that, you might ask? Simple: because the LDS Church is God’s true church on the face of the earth. Thus, it is the only religious institution that truly threatens Beelzebub’s plan of dragging as many souls as possible down to Hell to be his partners in misery. The Devil has a vested interest in making the LDS Church as laughable to outsiders as possible, so as to prevent converts and encourage apostasy. From what I’ve heard out of the mouths of ex-polygamists themselves, polygamists say the exact same thing about why they face persecution—because Satan is working so very hard, and so very specifically, against them. After all, why would he bother stirring up trouble for those who already belong to false churches and who are therefore already in his grasp? (What’s that? Religious groups other than Mormons and polygamists face persecution? Hush, hush, now! It’s time to move on! Go!)

Similarity #2: Doubting or questioning what you’ve been taught is the result of Satan planting those thoughts in your head
It’s more of the same logic here. Satan’s out to destroy God’s work, so of course he tries to confuse you by making you cock an eyebrow whenever a religious leader tells you something like God can make a square circle. Don’t question it! Don’t try to make sense of it! The more you linger on a doubt, the more chains Satan is able to wrap around your neck! Don’t be that guy! It’s amazing how much peace and tranquility comes from turning off your critical thinking skills!

Similarity #3: When laws are passed that stand in the way of the religion’s wishes or moral dictates, Satan is to blame
This probably counts as a subset of similarity #1, but I’ve heard it from polygamists and LDS Mormons alike. Polygamists point to the example of child labor laws that stand in the way of their building up the Kingdom of God on earth, as they are striving to do. Mormons point to things like the legalization of same-sex marriage, which stands in the way of their building up the Kingdom of God on earth, as they are striving to do. When will people learn that God does not want happiness for children or the gays! C’mon, already! No matter which religious group you belong to, make no mistake that when it comes to the nation’s law books, Satan is head ghost writer.

Similarity #4: Ugly stories about the church, its history, or its leaders are lies concocted by those who seek to destroy God’s work
Who are in turn inspired by Satan, of course. It’s infuriating to me when Mormons refuse to believe anything that opposes their belief system because all such things are automatically dismissed as lies. Critically evaluate my position and dismiss it. That is fine. But that’s not how it usually works. Knowing something contradicts the narrative they were raised with is enough for most Mormons to stop listening altogether. Well, I consider it a giant red flag whenever a religious institution uses its beliefs as a Litmus test for determining truth rather than the other way around. I’m sure this is a problem in many religious cultures and not just among Mormons and polygamists. Even so, I have learned that “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” is indeed a common retort for the latter two. One woman who spoke at Sunstone is a lawyer who worked on some of the legal cases connected to Warren Jeffs. She spoke of two polygamist women who were made to testify and who had to listen to the recording of Jeffs having sex with a 12-year-old girl in the FLDS temple. After refusing to answer the lawyer’s questions about it, the judge finally forced them to answer. “The God and the prophet never do wrong!” was all one of them would say. The other simply reported that she didn’t trust the audio recording one iota, considering it a fabrication of those determined to harm the prophet and the church. Sigh. Unshakeable faith is not a virtue, my friends. If your faith won’t shake even when reality hits it smack over the head, that’s not a matter of standing firm. That’s just having one hell of a stiff neck.

Similarity #5: Extreme reverence for church leaders
Maybe this one doesn’t seem so bad on the surface, but hear me out. On one episode of Escaping Polygamy, a woman was fleeing her FLDS community. In the midst of collecting her belongings and whatnot, she had to sneak into an FLDS school. As she darted through the school, you could see photos of Warren Jeffs hanging on the wall. Knowing who Jeffs is, this turned my stomach. These people are quite literally victims of Jeffs, and yet their buildings and homes are pockmarked with visual shrines to the man. I found myself thinking, “Shouldn’t it be paintings of Jesus on the wall? Isn’t that who they’re supposed to look to? Isn’t that who they claim to worship?” And it immediately hit me that Mormons do the exact same thing with pictures of their leaders. The last time I attended the LDS temple, I found myself disturbed by the photos of church leaders hanging in the chapel where one waits for a temple session to begin. It just didn’t seem right. And it isn’t. I guess it’s okay to have images of people you admire in your house, but in LDS culture, it’s something of a duty to have at least one photo of the prophet on prominent display in your home. Why??? Mormons rise whenever the president of the church walks into a room, hold public celebrations in honor of their leaders, swap stories about when they had the honor of touching or even being in the same room as one of these men, etc. It’s all a bit disturbing. We do this with celebrities, yes, but that’s my point—are these men celebrities? Should they be???


Ay, carumba. I don’t have time to finish this post now, and I’m not even sure if it’s structured the way I wanted it to be. I feel like it’s a rough draft at best, but with the limited time I have nowadays, I don’t really have time to second guess it. I’m officially calling it “Part 1” and hoping that “Part 2” will be something coherent whenever I get around to it. I don’t feel like this post added much of anything. Like I said, it was a rough draft with me gathering thoughts. I wasn’t sure I’d hand them over like this without reorganizing and restructuring, etc., but oh well. Sue me.  Can you tell I’m ending this rather abruptly?

Sunstone 2016

Note: I am backdating this post to yesterday, because I had written most of it by then and just never got around to publishing it. Until now. So there.

This weekend at the University of Utah was the Sunstone Symposium, an annual multi-day conference geared toward Mormon and Mormon-related intellectualism. The bulk of the crowd consists of liberal and/or “fringe” Mormons. There are also many ex-Mormons who retain an interest in Mormonism, and then there are those who belong to groups (or have come out of groups) that also trace their lineage, in some way or another, to Joseph Smith. (Many of these people call themselves “Mormon” but are not members of the mainstream LDS Church headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT. While I believe they have every right to use the term “Mormon,” I make a distinction here purely for convenience’s sake—because nothing says convenience quite like a lengthy parenthetical aside.)

My first time attending Sunstone was two years ago. I couldn’t go last year because I was in Nauvoo, but this year afforded me another opportunity to be a part of the Sunstone extravaganza. Of course, I’ve gone through some big changes since I last attended. This year, I went as an ex-Mormon. As such, I was interested in far fewer sessions. I don’t really need to attend a session on how doubt can be a healthy thing and has its place within the LDS Church when I myself am no longer a part of the LDS Church and no longer feel a need to come to terms with how much (or how little) I doubt. But the theme of this year’s symposium was “Many Mormonisms and the Mormon Movement.” There was a conscious effort to bring a wider range of “Mormon” voices to the conference, and that resulted in many polygamous sects being represented (sometimes for good and sometimes for ill). My interest in polygamy has increased much over the last while (though I have no interest in practicing polygamy myself, I assure you), so I ended up attending only one Sunstone session that was not polygamy-based. The very first session I attended this year featured a panel of women who currently live in polygamist families. Edith Barlow and Elsie Blackmore are the 13th and 25th wife, respectively, of Winston Blackmore. Also on the panel were Elise Barlow, Hanna Blackmore, and Dollie Blackmore, three of Winston’s 145 biological children. (That’s not a typo. He has 145 biological children.) They spoke highly of their experiences within a polygamous family and culture and of the joy that it brings them. They were articulate and funny. I very much appreciated and enjoyed hearing from them, and I felt nothing but good will toward them. Then, as a kind of afterthought, I remembered some of the ideas that weren’t being expressed but are pretty much guaranteed to be a part of their polygamous culture—unhealthy ideas and attitudes about different races, for example. That made me sad.

Brady Williams, of TLC’s My Five Wives, was also at Sunstone. (So were his wives, but they didn’t want to be on the stage, having “had enough of the spotlight,” according to Brady.) He argued in defense of “progressive polygamy,” which he deemed “feminism’s strangest bedfellow.” His family left the Apostolic United Brethren years ago and now practices polygamy for reasons that have nothing to do with religious beliefs. It is simply the structure of the family they have created together, that they love, and that they want to keep intact (as they should). Brady defends a view that is very forward-thinking, wherein a marriage system can remain closed but accommodate any variety and number of parties to that marriage: a man and five women, two men and a woman, five women and two men, three women without a man at all, etc. The key is that each party to the marriage has an equal say as to whom the marriage will include, and each party’s voice must be heard. That’s an oversimplified retelling of his view, but it was certainly interesting. I see no blatant logical or ethical flaws in his position, though I question how emotionally healthy it would be for at least most people to have more than one (concurrent) spouse.

Most of the sessions I attended were not friendly toward polygamy. Most presenters spoke of it as inherently damaging and problematic, with several of them being former members of polygamist groups. What fascinated me above all else was hearing these former members of fundamentalist Mormon sects describe mentalities that are oh-so-familiar to me because of my LDS background and upbringing. These are mentalities that I have long abandoned, and yet examining them within the framework of systems that I believe are clearly morally corrupt and/or psychologically unhealthy made it all the more obvious to me that these ways of thinking—no matter who adopts them—are just plain batshit crazy (to use the phrase I most want to use, if I may be so frank). Here is just a sample of the kinds of thinking I heard: Persecution is “proof” that you belong to the one true church, because that’s who Satan would want to target and hinder the progression of. If you find yourself seriously doubting or questioning what a church leader has taught or something that you read in the scriptures, Satan is putting those thoughts into your head. Because of his grasp on the world at large, Satan is also the author and perpetrator of laws that go against God’s will, prevent the building up of God’s kingdom on the earth, and otherwise corrupt society—which, in this case, includes anti-polygamy laws and child labor laws. Stories that reflect poorly on church leadership (past or present) are lies made up by those outside of the church who are intent on destroying it and thwarting God’s work. These are shaming, paranoia-inducing, critical-thinking-discouraging, coercive, manipulative, and otherwise controlling mentalities—and every single one of them is very familiar to me as someone who was born and raised in the LDS Church.

On Sunday, Community of Christ held “Sunstone Sunday” to finish off the Sunstone weekend. Community of Christ is one of the sponsors of the Sunstone Symposium, so a special announcement is made inviting people to attend our church services the day after the official symposium concludes. We had a ton of visitors, which was cool. I met some new people, and they all seemed great. Community of Christ seems to attract the cream of the crop, I have to admit. But not all of the guests were new to Community of Christ. Lachlan Mackay, my boss during my time in Nauvoo, came out for Sunstone and taught our Sunday School class. He explored the question of how it is that, given Mormonism’s militant beginnings, the RLDS Church / Community of Christ could nevertheless develop into a “peace church.” Then, during the worship service, Toronto-based John Hamer delivered the sermon. Hamer’s theme, taken from Luke 12:13–21, was “Be Rich Toward God.” It was an awesome service all around.

And now for some photos from my Sunstone adventures:

This is probably my very favorite souvenir of Sunstone 2016, the work of a gentleman by the name of Matt Page.  (He also dressed as Brigham Young and was a popular photo-op among Sunstone guests.)

Many people aren't aware that Brigham Young's son regularly performed in drag. This is a cardboard cutout of a photo of him in character. And no, this isn't a joke.

Lately, I've been thinking of taking up that quaint old habit of reading books again.  I got this from the discount / clearance / bargain bin table at Sunstone and feel eager to read it.

Brady Williams and his wives are bookended by Mica McGriggs (moderator) and Lindsay Hansen Park (one of the top people at Sunstone but also famous for her Year of Polygamy podcast series, which is well worth listening to ... though it might make you both sick and sad).

A could-be-better photo of D. Michael Quinn and John Nielsen, who presented at a session entitled "Who Holds the Keys?: FLDS Perspectives on Authority." Did you know that, in the FLDS community, the Celestial Kingdom is divided into three levels reserved for those whose marriages consist of 3 wives, 5 wives, and 7+ wives, respectively? That was new to me!  Apparently, it all ties back to Freemasonry and Brigham Young, like so much of polygamist culture and belief does (though not the actual polygamy part, funny enough).

Being goofy in my souvenir Infants on Thrones t-shirt.  Now that I've left the LDS Church behind, Infants on Thrones is the only podcast I listen to with great regularity.  It's irreverent, often hilarious, and features among its pantheon of hosts none other than the aforementioned John Hamer.

Lach Mackay and I pose with Emma Smith and Joseph Smith III at the Salt Lake City Community of Christ on Sunday, July 31st.  I got somewhere between zero and two photos with Lach while working in Nauvoo, but I'm not sure any of them were just the two of us.  This was as close as I could get.  For whatever reason, cardboard cut-outs are all the rage lately.

2015 in Review: Books

This is the second in a series looking back on 2015.  Other entries will include movies, music, food, TV, and more.

Compared to the year previous, my reading totals took a severe hit in 2015.  Of course, 2014 was a remarkable year in which I read 58 books and nearly 14,000 pages.  For 2015, my total (according to Goodreads) was 31 books and 8,468 pages.  Yikes!  I’m not sure what happened, to be honest.  I was going strong during the first half of the year, but I feel like things slowed down dramatically after I returned from my summer stint in Nauvoo.  August and September won’t so bad, but I completed only two total books between September 22^nd and December 31^st, one of which was rather small.  I’m appalled.

Moving on, let’s take a look at what kinds of books I was reading in 2015.  Of the 31 books I read, half (15 of them) were fiction.  Of the 16 non-fiction books I read, 9 were books on Mormonism, broadly construed.  I say “broadly construed” because one such book was on RLDS / Community of Christ history, and these people do not view themselves as Mormon.  But you get the idea.  This reveals yet another drastic shift in my reading habits—only 29% of the total books I read, or 56% of my non-fiction selections, were on Mormonism.  This may have something to do with my conversion to Community of Christ, but was likely further influenced by my participation in a book club during some months of 2015.  I wasn’t always choosing, in an explicit sense, the books I was reading.

10 of the books on my list are books that I read with my children, not including picture books.  This also represents a slowdown in reading to my kids, which is sad.  After reading the Bunnicula series and some of its spin-offs in 2014, we’ve struggled to know what to read together.  For 2015, we latched onto the Fudge series by Judy Blume.  The boys quite enjoyed the books, but Mom and Dad did not relish them nearly as much as we did the Bunnicula series.  In fact, I gave two of the four Fudge books we read just two stars, and the other two I gave three stars.  (Bear in mind that, unlike movies, I rate books on a five-star system so as to coincide with Goodreads).  The best of the bunch was Superfudge, which we finished back in April.  I had the impression Blume is supposed to be a great author, but I didn’t think her writing was all that great.  Sometimes it was even on the poorer side.  This is certainly true when it comes to narrative flow.  One problem I had with the books was how episodic each of them felt.  It may be that Blume captures something about child psychology, and captures it well, but the characters themselves are rather flat.  I deem them fluffy entertainment.  My kids seemed to enjoy them, which is great, but I wouldn’t recommend them per se.

Aside from Blume, only two authors showed up on my annual reading list more than once.  One of them is another author of juvenile fiction, Louis Sachar.  With Melanie and the boys, I read both Holes and Sideways Stories from Wayside School.  Both were quite good.  We read the latter, which featured some very off-the-wall humor, while in Nauvoo.  I associate the book with sitting in the upstairs loft / bedroom of the Sidney Rigdon house, all three boys nestled into a single bed.  Sigh.  The other author to appear twice is Samuel Morris Brown.  He wrote one of three books I read last year to which I would give a superlative five-star rating.  That book is In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death.  Published by Oxford University Press, In Heaven as It Is on Earth explores the influence of death on founding Mormon prophet Joseph Smith’s developing theology.  Brown argues that many developments in early Mormonism arose as the prophet Joseph both responded to and sought to overcome the prevalence of death around him—his brother, his own children, and so on.  It’s a captivating read.  Impressed by Brown’s earlier work, I excitedly picked up a copy of First Principles and Ordinances: The Fourth Article of Faith in Light of the Temple.  Even having left the LDS Church, I continue to find LDS temple theology and the development thereof to be quite fascinating.  Thus, I was quite disappointed by Brown’s book, to which I gave a low three stars.  My main beef was that the concepts Brown presented were not fleshed out enough to appreciate or make complete sense of.  As I said in my Goodreads review, “Brown draws some broad strokes with this book. They are intriguing enough that I want to stop and look at the picture he is painting, but I also wish he would come back and paint a bit more.”

Continuing with the theme of Mormonism, three of my favorite reads from the year dealt heavily with the issue of polygamy.  Richard S. Van Wagoner’s Mormon Polygamy: A History was originally published in 1986 but remains an excellent and extensive overview of Mormonism’s most infamous spiritual practice.  The book had quite an impact on me.  Prior to reading the book, I knew that Joseph Smith himself had practiced and yet publicly denied polygamy.  I knew he was, sadly, rather deceptive to his legal wife Emma regarding his polygamous relationships.  But I was shocked to learn just how pervasive and long-lasting the dishonesty surrounding polygamy was.  Extensively lying to the public, and even to their own church members, about polygamy continued with several of the LDS Church Presidents that followed Joseph.  I was also surprised to realize just how much of LDS culture today is influenced by its polygamous past.  Several times during my reading of the book, I saw connections between the behaviors being encouraged in the polygamous heyday of the 1800s and the modern Mormon mindset.  To cite just one example, the perpetuation of polygamy relied on convincing prospective plural wives that they should obey a church leader’s counsel no matter what, even if it didn’t sit well with them or they couldn’t understand why such a thing would be required.  I find it interesting that such a mentality continues quite strongly in the LDS tradition and yet is starkly absent from Community of Christ, which has always decried, and in fact owes its existence in large part to its denunciation of, polygamy.

Another great read is Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippets Avery’s Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith.  Also written in the 1980s, Mormon Enigma remains the preeminent biography of Joseph Smith’s only legal wife, Emma.  As one would expect, polygamy factors heavily into the book.  I’d deem the book a must-read, even though the writing sometimes annoyed me.  The content itself is excellent, but things aren’t always communicated clearly, and sometimes stories are thrown into the mix that seem like asides and not entirely relevant to the discussion at hand.  On very rare occasions, the authors also appear biased toward a pro-LDS interpretation of events that isn’t adequately supported by the text.  You may also find it interesting to know that, if you go to Nauvoo and take a tour of the historic sites owned by Community of Christ, a great deal of what you’ll hear can be found in Mormon Enigma.

The final book on polygamy that I read is The Polygamous Wives Writing Club by Paula Kelly Harline.  Harline’s book, published in 2014, offers a fascinating peek into polygamy as it was lived among the average—that is to say, non-elite—members of the early LDS Church.  The book is comprised largely of diary entries and the like from the plural wives of rank-and-file LDS men.  These are not the women who were married to apostles and prophets, but those married to normal folk.  By reading this book, you get an idea of what it was like for those women who practiced “celestial marriage” as part of an otherwise very normal, very routine life—which is not to suggest that these women were content in their situations.  Despite being published by Oxford University Press, The Polygamous Wives Writing Club is a very approachable read, suitable for non-scholastics as well as those with a more academic bent.  Early in the book, I feared a little too much speculation was creeping into the commentary supplied by the author, but it’s easy enough to overlook such things as one wishes.  It’s a very worthwhile read.

I mentioned above that I was part of a book club in 2015.  More specifically, it was the Salt Lake City congregation of Community of Christ book club (not an official title).  I haven’t read every month’s selection, and I’m uncertain I’ll continue with the club at this point in time, but book club accounts for four of last year’s reads, plus one book that I read most of during December but didn’t officially complete until after the new year (disqualifying it from this list).   The first such book I read was Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber.  I got the impression that everyone else in book club had gone goo-goo ga-ga over this book, but I found it rather middle of the road—for the same reason, I think, that two other hugely popular book club selections didn’t really resonate with me.  They feel like fluff pieces to me.  There really isn’t much depth to them at all.  They might contain a handful of quotes worth remembering, although even those are often only the caliber of something you’d see on a motivational poster or passed around on Facebook as part of some feel-good meme.  And that seems to be the aim of these books: to make you feel good and motivated.  Problem is, they seem to rehash their own ideas over and over and over again without ever diving too deeply below the surface.  The other books that fall into this category are The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown (which I enjoyed even less than Pastrix) and the book I finished last week and so can’t officially count (Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor).

Two of the book club selections I read were actually pretty good.  I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb, which tells the story of The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban (as the subtitle reminds you) is undeniably engaging.  How can you not be pulled into such a story?  And yet the writing itself is not particularly memorable.  There were moments when it seemed obvious the reader was getting much more of Lamb’s journalistic voice than Malala’s own.  There were also moments when the things being said felt obligatory, motivated by public relations, and/or otherwise mildly contrived.  You can’t go wrong reading it, but it’s not a story that’s worthwhile because of the way it’s told.

My favorite book club selection of 2015 turned out to be Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk who argues that, at their core, Buddhism and Christianity are really teaching the same things.  I’m very much drawn toward ecumenical and interfaith types of ideas, and I’m a universalist at heart.  It’s easy to see why I would like this book better than some of the others.  There is also a great deal more wisdom—honest-to-goodness wisdom, folks—packed into this book, gems like:

To “love our enemy” is impossible, because the moment we love him, he is no longer our enemy.

And here is, I believe, an excellent and beautiful defense of religious pluralism:

It is good that an orange is an orange and a mango is a mango.  The colors, the smells, and the tastes are different, but looking deeply, we see that they are both authentic fruits.  Looking more deeply, we can see the sunshine, the rain, the minerals, and the earth in both of them.  Only their manifestations are different.  Authentic experience makes a religion a true tradition.  Religious experience is, above all, human experience.  If religions are authentic, they contain the same elements of stability, joy, peace, understanding, and love.  The similarities as well as the differences are there.  They differ only in terms of emphasis.  Glucose and acid are in all fruits, but their degrees differ.  We cannot say that one is a real fruit and the other is not.

Now let’s move on to the best of the best, from both fiction and non-fiction.

My absolute favorite read of the year, which also happens to be non-fiction, is Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet by Roger D. Launius.  I finished Pragmatic Prophet in early May, shortly after I had officially become a member of Community of Christ.  I wanted to learn more about the first president of the church after the death of founding prophet, Joseph Smith (Jr.).  I had grown up accepting Brigham Young as Smith’s rightful successor, but the more I’ve learned about Young over the years, the more horrified I’ve become.  Reading Pragmatic Prophet was an eye-opening experience, not only because I knew next to nothing about the so-called succession crisis or the early days of what became known as the RLDS Church, but because Joseph Smith III provides such an astoundingly stark contrast to the man I had always believed rightfully held the title of prophet and president after Joseph Smith’s death.  The difference between the two men is truly astonishing.  I fell in love with Joseph Smith III while reading this scholarly work, published by University of Illinois Press.  He was a humble and sincere man who sought to do only what he truly felt God wanted him to do.  Especially powerful to me were the dreams and/or visions of Joseph Smith III that seem so clearly to foretell of the two distinct paths that the LDS and the RLDS churches would take.  Pragmatic Prophet solidified for me the notion that God is and always has been a part of the RLDS / Community of Christ tradition, no matter how much God has also been involved in LDS history.  I’m not the type of person that would want to limit God’s influence to only one of the two churches, but not everyone would be as generous as I.

Other highly recommendable works of non-fiction:

• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
• Yes Please by Amy Poehler
•  Standing Apart: Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy by Miranda Wilcox and John D. Young, Editors

The best work of fiction I read in 2015 is Brady Udall’s 2001 novel The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint.  It’s a quirky, depressively humorous book that features a catchy story and an even catchier voice in main character and narrator, Edgar Mint.  Edgar is the perpetual victim who never sees himself as such, even when a mailman accidentally runs over his head with a mail truck at the age of seven.  Edgar is, understandably, a little odd from that point forward, but he’s someone you’ll love spending time with.  Now, it’s true that Edgar spends some of his time in a Mormon foster-family, but I promise that’s not the only reason I liked this book.

Other highly recommendable works of fiction:

• The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donahue  (One of the most genuinely creepy “scary” books I’ve ever read!)
• Heroes of the Dustbin by Tyler Whitesides
• Finders Keepers by Stephen King

December Madness

Life has been crazy hectic since the week of Thanksgiving. I touched on this somewhat in my previous post, which dealt with my post-Thanksgiving house hunting and job hunting. But that was only the beginning. Here are just some of the goings-on as of late:

I had my interview with a financing company on Friday, December 4th. I was interviewing to be a loan processor. Nothing glamorous, but the company seemed promising. I felt like the interview went really well, and those who interviewed me behaved in such a way that I felt incredibly confident about my chances. Nevertheless, I received a rejection email from them by Monday mid-afternoon. The nice thing is, I didn’t feel even a tiny hint of disappointment. Honestly. I was glad not to have to worry about it anymore, because I had another interview lined up for a job that I was even more excited about. I was happy to know I wouldn’t end up in a situation where I had a job offer but wanted to put it on hold while I waited on another possible offer.

On Sunday, December 6th, I taught Sunday school. That’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it always takes a decent amount of preparation. It’s not as easy to fake it or wing it in Community of Christ as it is in the LDS Church, simply because the approach to Sunday school is quite different. I’m not making a value judgment when I say that, by the way … although I can see how one might do so.

On Monday, December 7th, I had my two-hour penultimate training class for becoming an elder in Community of Christ. It was done via Skype, and I think it was the first and only class where I didn’t accidentally disconnect myself during the call or Skype session. That was nice.

On Tuesday, December 8th, I had a job interview for a position I was really feeling excited about. I still do feel some excitement about it, but I’m in the waiting stage now and so it’s kind out of my mind for the moment. I was told I wouldn’t hear back for a couple of weeks because they are doing so many interviews. Anyway, the interview itself didn’t go as well as I had hoped. The first half went okay, but I felt really displeased with how I answered a couple of questions at the end. Because of that, I walked away feeling like I had blown it and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed for a few days. I haven’t completely written off the job opportunity, in part because I know they are hiring at least 11 people. But I don’t know what to expect. Now that I’ve had some time away from worrying about it, I wonder how happy I would really be there. I feel like a whiner every time I talk about being happy in a job. “What makes you feel entitled to that?” I can hear people saying. “That’s a luxury few of us are afforded. Grow up and get used to it.” Yeah, well. Since leaving graduate school, I’ve felt more in touch with my own self and had moments when I feel like my true personality has been allowed to shine, and it’s horribly depressing to think of stuffing it back down into a box that rarely gets opened. Problem is, I have no idea what I can do in the here and now that would fit me. Lately, I wonder about being a librarian. I think interacting with the public is something I would enjoy, and I like libraries. That seems like a winning combination, assuming my interactions with the public would be more positive than not. And I think that, at a library, they would be. Not that I know of any library openings right now. I’m just trying to find that delicate balance between fantasy and reality. A library job seems feasible and yet appealing.

Moving on, Wednesday, December 9th was crazy busy. I had my final class to become an elder, and it lasted three hours. We went over the various sacraments within Community of Christ, which was really neat. I’m familiar with them already, but it was rewarding to spend some focused time on them. There are a few minor differences with how things are done in Community of Christ compared to the LDS Church, and some of them I quite like. For example, I quite like that consecrated oil is used whenever you perform the sacrament of administration (or what LDS folks would simply refer to as giving a blessing). In the LDS Church, you use consecrated oil only when a person is sick. In Community of Christ, you would use oil even if you’re giving what LDS folks would call a blessing of comfort or of guidance. I like ritual and symbolism, so I think this makes it powerful. On the other hand, there are differences that won’t feel as natural to me. In Community of Christ, the person receiving a sacrament (or blessing) is not addressed directly, except maybe very momentarily at the beginning. In the LDS tradition, the bulk of a blessing would be directed to the one receiving it, speaking to that person rather than to God. In Community of Christ, the blessing is directed toward God. I can see how that makes sense, given that blessings are treated like a prayer (concluding with an “amen,” for example), but I like the intimacy of speaking to the one being blessed. Not that I can’t do it however I want in my own home or whatever.

After my elder class, I hurried to meet a friend for lunch. I haven’t seen this friend in years. He has only returned to Utah somewhat recently, but apparently he has followed my blog and knows much about my life. That’s always a little strange. I honestly assume nobody reads my blog, other than my sister once in a while and my mom once in a really long while. Anyway, he reached out to me because he’s had his own issues or questions or thoughts or what have you about religion. I’m really flattered when people reach out to me about this stuff. It’s happened quite a bit in the last few years, and it’s honestly a form of ministry (if you want to call it that) that I care a great deal about. If my friend is reading this, he may be scoffing a bit because it’s not like I said anything useful to him at lunch. I’m not pretending to be humble, either. I really didn’t say much to him. I shared a little bit about my own journey, but mostly I was just trying to listen. Especially if I haven’t talked a lot to someone about this kind of stuff, I feel uncomfortable saying very much to that person. I don’t want to intrude on their spiritual journey. I’m also kind of hyper-paranoid about people assuming I have an agenda. I know I’ve had my moments when I’ve complained about the LDS Church or LDS culture, but my goal is not to get people to leave the LDS Church. I just want people to be happy and healthy. And I want those who hurt to feel comforted. And if I can facilitate that in any manner whatsoever, however minor it may be, I consider it a great honor. It is a path to which I feel called, and I pray that God will make me more and more capable of serving in that capacity.

My Wednesday shenanigans did not end with a lunch date. That evening, I had a pastorate meeting with those who will be serving on the SLC congregation pastorate in 2016. The meeting was in American Fork, which is about 20 minutes away. I was almost 30 minutes late. I didn’t know where I was going and am not hip enough to have any sort of GPS, so you can imagine how easily this situation turned into a disaster. I get tired of being the incompetent one of the group, but oh well.

Thursday is when all of my plans for the week started to go to pot. My health started going downhill, but it wasn’t until Friday that it dawned on me I probably had strep throat. Turns out I am not immune after all. Bummer. But the bigger bummer is that I had to miss out on two very special events. Sort of. (I’ll explain the “sort of” in a moment.) The first event I missed was participating in an on-camera interview being conducted by Community of Christ Apostle (and President of the Council of the Twelve) Linda Booth. I’ve known for quite some time that Community of Christ wanted to record interviews with those of us in the SLC congregation to learn more about our faith journeys. The SLC congregation has experienced such rapid growth in the last two years that it’s garnered the attention of the World Church (or the senior leadership headquartered in Independence, Missouri). They wanted to learn more about what’s happening, and the interviews will likely be used in future promotional videos for the church. Because I am part of (and, at this point, among the first to come into) the booming SLC congregation, I really wanted to be involved in this project. It was important to me, and I’ve looked forward to it for a long time. Melanie and I had an interview time scheduled for Friday night, but I couldn’t go. I wasn’t well enough. Melanie had to go without me. That saddened me.

The second event I had to miss was the baptism of one of our SLC congregants. That’s disappointing in and of itself, but this person had asked me to give his baptismal charge. (To put it simply, a baptismal charge is a talk or sermon that precedes a person’s baptism and is directed largely to that individual as he/she enters into the baptismal covenant.) I was very flattered that this person asked me to do so, and it felt tragic to cancel on him. Not because I think I’m special, but because he had asked me to do it and I failed him. It wasn’t my fault, but that didn’t matter. I still felt really depressed about it. I had been working on the baptismal charge and felt really good about where it was headed. So, it was all quite sad. I guess I can only say that so many times. The one tiny glimmer of a silver lining is that, because I was feeling so crappy, once I canceled on the interview and the baptism, I could finally get some rest. I had resisted canceling in the hopes that I would pull through, and that meant I kept working on things even when I felt like garbage. The second I let go of these things, I crashed.

Having gone to an instant care type of facility on Saturday morning and starting my antibiotics, I felt up to the challenge of showing up to church at 8:30 AM on Sunday so I could participate in the filmed interviews after all. I wasn’t sure I’d feel up to it, but I’m really glad I did it. It’s funny, being interviewed on camera talking about Community of Christ did not make me nervous. Job interviews are much, much worse. Naturally, once the interview was over, I thought of things I wish I had said and I thought of better ways to express some of the things I had shared. But overall, I felt quite good about the interview, and I got the sense that Linda was also very pleased with it. After the interview, I was given the opportunity to receive an apostolic blessing from Linda, which I happily accepted. It was a very pleasant experience. Whenever I am privileged to interact with ministers who are so genuinely loving and sincere, I can’t help but feel that renewed sense of calling. This is the kind of work I want to do. It really is, as much as I fear my own inadequacies. It has nothing to do with the positions these people hold. It is not because they are apostles and thus rank highly within some ecclesiastical hierarchy. That really is beside the point. Fawning over church leaders is not really a thing in Community of Christ, and I am so grateful for that. I’ve been amazed at the humility that even the “highest” ranking church leaders possess. It is beautiful. I truly see them striving to be the Lord’s hands on earth, and I want to do the same. It is inspiring.

And that brings us to today, Monday the 14th. I had looked forward to today as the first day when not much would be on my agenda. Then it snowed like crazy mad and I spent three hours taking Melanie and the boys to school and getting back home, usually a 30-minute round trip. I do not enjoy this outrageous winter weather. We were spared such things last year, so this was the first time I’ve had to regret moving back to Utah on account of the weather. I knew it would happen eventually. The snow is supposed to continue at an outrageous pace through tomorrow, but Melanie will have to brave it alone. That worries me, but it doesn’t make sense for me to have to drive back and forth twice when she can do it once. Creegan’s preschool is canceled for tomorrow, so there’s no sense in me going along for the ride. I wish today had been more relaxed, but at least I’m alive.

Understanding “Understanding the Handbook”

One week after the LDS Church’s new policies on same-sex couples and the children of same-sex partners caused quite a kerfuffle, Michael Otterson, the Managing Director of Church Public Affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, issued a public statement. The statement was titled “Understanding the Handbook,” referring to the Church Handbook of Instructions, which is the official policy guide and operating manual for the church. What follows is my response to that statement. The statement will be shared in its entirety throughout the course of this blog post, although I will stop after every paragraph or so to share my commentary. The indented block quotations are, of course, taken from the LDS Church’s public statement itself. Let us begin:

If there’s one thing that virtually all Christians agree on, it’s Jesus Christ’s tender love of children. Both the Bible and Book of Mormon deliver touching accounts of His love for “little ones,” blessing them and forbidding His disciples from keeping children from Him.

Good. The LDS Church is aware of the parallel many people have drawn between the church’s new policies and what happens in the tenth chapter of Mark in the Bible. In case you don’t know, this is a passage of scripture in which Jesus’ chosen disciples try to shoo away the many children that are flocking to see him, as if those children are a nuisance. Jesus rebukes his disciples, saying, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (v. 14). The fact that it’s the disciples who need correcting is rather poignant, of course, and I’m sure the LDS Church is grimacing at just how easily and unflatteringly this whole snafu can be likened to this passage from Mark. And so, with this opening paragraph, the church tries to gain control of the narrative by implying that they agree with Mark’s sentiments—and hence must not be guilty of doing what they are accused of.

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the family is reverenced and children are its centerpiece. Yet last week an instructional letter from Church leadership addressing the sensitive topic of how to respond to same-sex relationships sparked a wave of inquiries from Church members. Most of the questions were about children.

I’m amazed how often the LDS Church tries to do something I see my own children do, which is to make something true by fiat. “Be careful or you’ll break that,” says the parent. “No, I won’t,” says the child. And in the child’s mind, it really is that simple. They won’t break something simply because they’ve decided they won’t. That’s all it takes. And that’s the gimmick at play in the first sentence of the paragraph directly above. The LDS Church says it reverences the family and makes children a “centerpiece,” so there you go! It must be true! How can you complain about that? The lyrics of a popular ballad by 1990s hard rock group Extreme seem apropos here: “More than words / is all I ever needed you to show / Then you wouldn’t have to say / that you love me / ‘cause I’d already know.”

Because the letter was an instructional document to leadership throughout the world, and not a Church-wide announcement through LDS.org or through Church Public Affairs, there was no additional information or context on the usual Church websites. That prompted questions from many Church members, who were mostly reading media headlines portraying the instructions as a rejection of children and refusal to name babies. Members understandably had specific questions about how the announced change might affect their loved ones.

No additional information or context? What additional information or context do you really need? The new policies are pretty much just lists of rules. It’s the rules themselves that are the problem. Make a rule that the children of black parents cannot be baptized and we don’t really need any more “context” to know there’s absolutely nothing okay about it.

The episode demonstrates clearly the dangers of drawing conclusions based on incomplete news reports, tweets and Facebook posts without necessary context and accurate information. The Church quickly responded to many of those concerns with a video interview with Elder D. Todd Christofferson, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. By the end of the weekend, that interview had been viewed by millions.

Translation: “It’s your fault if you were offended or found the new policies objectionable. We didn’t do anything wrong. You did! The only reason someone could be bothered is if that person is going about this all wrong. The problem is most definitely not us!” Note that we are several paragraphs in and not getting anywhere in terms of making sense of or defending the new policies. All the LDS Church has done thus far is say “all we do is love people” (without really backing up the claim) and “if you’re upset, it’s your fault”—classic victim blaming. Granted, as the Managing Director of Church Public Affairs, Otterson can dish this stuff up with a smooth enough coating that many people won’t even realize what they’re swallowing. But spit it out and take a look—there’s little substance here. Otterson cites a videotaped interview with LDS Church Apostle D. Todd Christofferson as providing answers to many of the questions people have raised—which, in my opinion, it did not do—but that’s just hand-waving. Otterson tries to obscure this fact by announcing that millions of people have now watched the video—which means what, exactly? I don’t know. But that’s an impressive number, right? So, surely that means the video answers a lot of questions and does so satisfactorily. Right? Right???

Today, a letter clarifying what the Handbook changes mean and do not mean has been posted on the primary Church website, LDS.org.

One difficulty was a general lack of understanding of the Handbook itself, which is a guide for lay leaders of the church in 30,000 congregations across the world. A purpose of the Handbook is to provide bishops and other leaders with a standard reference point when they make decisions. Because it is a policy and procedural manual, the Handbook is not written in language that is necessarily contextual or explanatory. Church leaders are encouraged to use the Handbook in conjunction with the guidance of the Holy Ghost. Sensitivity to individual circumstances is learned through the Spirit, Christ’s teachings and example as found in the scriptures, from talks and teachings of General Authorities, and from the leaders’ own experience and exposure to real-life situations. No handbook can answer every question or address every circumstance.

I might discuss the “clarifying” letter in a future blog post. For now, let’s stick with this press release. This paragraph I see as particularly sly. I believe that it is deliberately designed to give the impression that the new policies aren’t as harsh as they appear because they aren’t necessarily binding, and because ultimately the Holy Ghost will determine in each case what precisely happens—and who can argue with the Holy Ghost? The paragraph suggests that there is a lot of flexibility, and that the Handbook is just one small piece of the puzzle—next to but outranked by the teachings of Christ and the guidance of the Spirit, etc.—as ecclesiastical leaders decide how best to tend to their flocks. Sadly, I think the paragraph is purposely misleading. This may sound like paranoia on my part, but there is precedence for what I’m saying. Consider other lines of thought familiar to Mormons: teach by the Spirit, but stick to the lesson manual; rely on personal revelation, but only insofar as it conforms to what church leaders tell you. I see a persistent mistrust of church members to rely on their own consciences and spiritual sensitivities. The bottom line seems to be always to fall in line with the church. So, yes, by all means, rely on the Holy Ghost when applying the policies outlined in the Church Handbook of Instructions—but only insofar as doing so conforms to those policies. If you ever think the Holy Ghost is telling you to go against policy—well, stick to the Handbook. (“Follow the Handbook, follow the Handbook, follow the Handbook, it knows the way!”) All the talk in the press release about the Handbook not having any context is beside the point because the dictates of the Handbook do not require context. For example, one policy states: if a child has a parent who is in a same-sex marriage, that child cannot receive a baby blessing. What other context matters? Does it matter what brand of shampoo the parents use? What is the LDS Church pretending will make a difference here? You cannot come up with a scenario involving a child with a parent in a same-sex marriage where any other details are going to change the fact that the child is, according to the policy as stated, prohibited from receiving a baby blessing.¹   Throwing in language to suggest the matter isn’t already decided is meant only to distract and to assuage complaints. It is disingenuous and manipulative.

Here are the key points to understand as background to the recent changes and additions to the leaders’ Handbook:

• It is not a sin simply to feel attraction to another person of the same sex. Some faithful members of the Church experience those attractions yet participate in the Church without breaking the Lord’s commandments. They serve missions and attend the temple. The Church teaches its members to embrace these brothers and sisters and encourage them in their faithful lives in the Church.

• There is no change in the doctrinal position that sexual relations between people of the same sex are sinful.

• There is new information in the Handbook that addresses a narrow range of situations involving the children of same-sex couples.

I don’t see how this information is helpful. I honestly think it’s meant to distract from the issue immediately at hand. As for the claim that the Handbook addresses only a “narrow range of situations,” I once again feel the Church is trying to mislead. What’s so narrow about it? Is it narrow because the new policies only touch a handful of items: baby blessings, baptism, confirmation, participating in the priesthood, and the serving of missions? From birth to adulthood, that pretty much covers the gamut of benchmarks and rites of passage that most members of the LDS Church experience. Denying all of these things to all children who fit the description in the Handbook hardly qualifies as a “narrow range of situations.” It’s offensive to suggest otherwise.

With same-sex marriage now legal in the United States and some other nations, the Church felt the need specifically to address such marriages in the Handbook to draw a firm line and encourage consistency among local leaders. In particular, Church leaders are concerned for children–whether biologically born to one of the partners, adopted or medically conceived.

Unless you’re looking at things from the macro level, the legalization of same-sex marriage is not that new in many countries other than the United States. I believe the LDS Church is making changes now only because it is becoming particularly relevant to the U.S. Rarely does the church seem to care about things that don’t affect us here in good ol’ ‘Merica, often Utah specifically. You can bet your bottom dollar that if an issue is going to affect Utah, that issue is what these modern-day prophets, seers, and revelators—for the whole world, mind you—will be talking about. If it’s not hitting close to Utah—meh. Regardless, I’m offended that the church keeps couching things in terms of concern for the children. I think that is blatant bull crap. I hate to think what other organizations have excluded and discriminated against certain groups—of innocent persons, no less—“for their own good.” That’s a red flag if ever there was one.

In reality, very few same-sex couples would bring children for the formal Church ordinance of naming and blessing, since this creates a formal membership record. But Church leaders want to avoid putting little children in a potential tug-of-war between same-sex couples at home and teachings and activities at church.

I’m quite bothered by the first sentence above. I don’t get it when harming or discriminating against people is justified by saying you’re only doing it to a few. Not when it’s possible to do it to none. It’s sort of like saying, “In reality, very few people of color would bring their business to this restaurant owned by racists, so it doesn't really matter that the restaurant only lets white people order certain items off the menu.” What does the amount of people harmed by the policy have to do with it being okay to cause that harm? And finally, the tug-of-war remark. As countless others have pointed out, this excuse just doesn’t fly. There are numerous ways in which families can and do diverge from the official teachings of the LDS Church, and yet the children of those families are not excluded from any of the practices now being denied to the children of same-sex couples. The post hoc nature of the proffered excuse is pitiful.

This next paragraph needs to be taken a bit at a time. I’ll go even more slowly here.

This sensitivity to family circumstances is practiced elsewhere. For example, the Church doesn’t baptize minor children without parental consent, even if the children want to be associated with their LDS friends.

Okay. But what if both or all of the child’s parents want and/or support the baptism? Is the child excluded then? Only if the child’s parents are gay, per the new policy.

A married man or woman isn’t baptized if the spouse objects.

But what if each party in the marriage wants and/or supports the baptism? Is anyone excluded then? Only if the person’s parents are gay, per the new policy.

Missionaries don’t proselytize in most Muslim countries or in Israel, where there are particular sensitivities with family.

Almost any instance of trying to convert somebody away from their religion involves “sensitivities with family.” Can you honestly tell me the restriction on proselytizing in these particular areas does not stem from either legal or severe social backlashes that the LDS Church itself would face, rather than from the LDS Church’s overwhelming sensitivity to families???

In some African and other nations where polygamy is practiced, anyone whose parents practice polygamy needs special permission for baptism so they know that a practice that is culturally acceptable for many in the region is not acceptable in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Special permission, but they aren’t barred from baptism altogether. Not unless their parents are gay, per the new policy, that is. But regardless, what do any of the “parallels” offered in this paragraph of the church’s press release have to do with prohibiting innocent babies from being blessed? The answer: not a damn thing.

Of course, there are always situations that fall outside general guidelines and principles, which is why local leaders may ask for guidance from more senior leaders in particular cases where they may have questions.

Finally, near the end of the press release, something is said that actually seems useful for those wondering about the Handbook. Of course, it has little or nothing to do with the scandalous policies that actually inspired the LDS Church to send out this press release. So, again, how is this helpful? It’s not, really.

Let’s take the final paragraph a bit at a time, as well.

The vast majority of Church members understand that there has been no doctrinal change with regard to LGBT issues. Church doctrine is consistent with the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

I don’t know that I’ve heard anyone complain that doctrine has changed. I think most people understand that this is pure policy … although I appreciate the LDS Church pointing out that one way we can tell this was a policy change rather than a doctrinal change is because doctrine is consistent with the example of Jesus Christ, which this policy clearly isn’t. Okay, okay, I’m sure that’s not what they meant. But isn’t that almost what’s implied, in a rather comical way?

There is a strong tendency today for many to talk of Jesus Christ as if His teachings on love were somehow inconsistent with his teachings on divine commandments. Of course the Savior’s love was never withheld from anyone and His words on the cross exemplify that. But, He also expressed love by teaching clear doctrine and standing firmly against sin with sometimes-tough lessons for which people rejected Him.

I honestly don’t know what “clear doctrine” the LDS Church is referring to. I certainly don’t remember Jesus teaching anything about shunning or forbidding people to come unto him. Quite the contrary. In fact, some of Jesus’ clearest teachings were specifically about children and the importance of including them. If that weren’t enough, Jesus was perhaps at his most clear when he instructed us to love God and our neighbors. How in the world is this new policy doing anything remotely loving?

That is where Church leaders stand today – holding firm to the doctrinal position of right and wrong, while extending love to all people.

I’m sure comparing church leaders to Jesus is an effective rhetorical tool, but again, it takes more than saying something to make it true. You’re not extending love to everyone just because you say you are.

Church members who believe in modern prophets and apostles understand and appreciate the intent of their leaders to guide the Church through the complexities of diverse societies and rapidly changing social circumstances.

Another low blow. Here, the LDS Church insinuates that anyone who complains about the new policies does not believe in modern prophets and apostles. This is a cheap way to (try to) win an argument. It seeks to delegitimize any dissenting voices from the start, allowing those voices to be ignored because they can’t possibly come from “faithful” or “believing” members of the church. No doubt this is how many Mormons will treat those who oppose the new policies, dismissing them as woefully misguided, if not literally under the influence of Satan. It’s a conversation stopper and nothing more.

Make no mistake, there is plenty of manipulation in this press release. Don’t fall for it.



¹ Since I started writing this blog post, the LDS Church has altered the policy under the guise of “clarification.” The new version of the policy forbids a child from these ordinances only if the child’s primary residence is with the same-sex couple. This does not affect, in any meaningful way, the heart of the criticisms raised by my blog post.