So I continue to wade into online and offline discussions about the church\u2019s policy of denying crucial gospel ordinances to innocent children, and the consensus seems to be that I have \u201crejected the prophets,\u201d in the words of one Facebook commenter who seemed really enthusiastic about getting the ball rolling on my inevitable excommunication. Privately, I\u2019ve been told that the only faithful thing for me to do is to \u201cstop talking about it.\u201d Someone else told me that I\u2019m faithless for referencing statistics that show a marked uptick in LGBT suicide rates among LDS teens since the policy was announced \u2013 they\u2019ve quadrupled by some measures – \u00a0because it \u201cmakes the Church look bad,\u201d even though the church eventually acknowledged the same sad facts in a public statement.<\/p>\n
This has been a real eye-opener for me, if for no other reason than it has demonstrated just how far removed from a Zion society we really are. The eagerness of so many of us to condemn and ostracize those who show even the slightest hint of discomfort with conventional Mormondom is especially disheartening. After all, I\u2019ve been a pretty conservative, straight-arrow, whitebread, Republican, orthodox Mormon for most of my life, so I had no idea so many other members were this anxious to get rid of me. I also had no idea that calling attention to a deeply troubling suicide trend was more offensive than the fact that a group of uniquely vulnerable young people increasingly see death as a preferable alternative to a life in the Church.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m not leaving. I\u2019m not even going to slacken my activity level. I intend to remain fully engaged and committed, and I intend to continue to sustain the prophets.<\/p>\n
(I will now give voice to a straw-man accuser who will helpfully say all of his accusations in italics to distinguish them from my own reasoned, sage-like responses.)<\/p>\n
Sustain the prophets? Say what? You can\u2019t sustain the prophets if you disagree with them. Of course I can. In fact, that\u2019s one of the truest tests of discipleship \u2013 to follow human and fallible leaders that have all the same amount of agency I have, even when they\u2019re not always right. That was my position well before this policy came on to the scene<\/a>, and that\u2019s my position now.<\/p>\n But by disagreeing with this policy, you\u2019re not following them. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Not at all. I would not be following them only if I were to subvert this policy and refuse to comply with it.<\/p>\n Wait a minute. You\u2019re saying you will comply with this policy?<\/em><\/p>\n Of course I will. In the unlikely event that I were ever a bishop, and a married gay couple gave consent for their innocent child to be baptized, I would do everything within my discretion to make that happen.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not complying with the policy!<\/em><\/p>\n It is. Thankfully, this policy, and particularly the clarifications that came after it, gives the bishop a great deal of discretion. Children are to be denied blessings and baptism only in cases where life with married gay parents constitutes a \u201cprimary residence.\u201d So in joint custody cases where one divorced parent is an active member and the other has remarried someone of the same gender, which are likely to constitute the vast majority of cases to which this policy applies, I would likely have the discretion to assign the designation of \u201cprimary residence\u201d to the parent living in circumstances that would allow the child to receive all the blessings of the gospel.<\/p>\n That may work most if the time, but that won\u2019t always work. So what about cases where you couldn\u2019t do that?<\/em><\/p>\n In those cases, a child cannot be baptized without First Presidency approval. So I would petition the First Presidency for approval.<\/p>\n Yeah? Well, what if they turned you down?<\/em><\/p>\n Then I\u2019d show up on the doorstep of the Church Office Building and beg.<\/p>\n Man, you just can\u2019t take no for an answer, can you?<\/em><\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t want to, no. And I don\u2019t understand why so many would<\/em> want to. Just as I don\u2019t really get why so many are gloating over their own righteousness and reveling in the pain of those of us who are struggling with this policy, I also don\u2019t get why everyone wouldn\u2019t be looking for every possible avenue to include rather than exclude, to show compassion rather than condemnation, to welcome rather than reject.<\/p>\n Get off your high horse, you NOM*. The fact is, you can go through all that nonsense and still come up short. You can camp out in front of Thomas Monson\u2019s office, and he could still tell you no. So what then?<\/em><\/p>\n What then? Then I weep. Then I return to these precious, innocent children and their parents and, with tears in my eyes, tell them that despite everything I could possibly do \u2013 and I would have done everything I could have possibly done \u2013 the Church still won\u2019t let them be baptized. Then I would plead with them to turn the other cheek and not reject the Church that has rejected them. And I would organize a ward council to find as many possible ways to include this child and their family in every possible way within ward activities and use every resource available at my disposal to let them know they are valued, they are wanted, and they are loved.<\/p>\n Wait a minute. Their families? Even the gay couple?<\/em><\/p>\n Yes. Even them.<\/p>\n But they\u2019re sinners!<\/em><\/p>\n That they are. As are you. As am I. As are all fifteen men in the highest offices of the Church. \u201cFor all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.\u201d (Romans 3:23)<\/p>\n Let\u2019s set aside the straw man for a moment. For more than a century, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints excluded people from full fellowship in the Church based on folklore about Cain, \u201cless-valiant spirits,\u201d and other nonsense that was passed off as doctrine. Many within the Church viewed that as wrong, and now the Church has admitted it was wrong. But at the time, even those who viewed it as wrong could not very well go about ordaining black people, even though they believed that was the right thing to do, or, even more significantly, even if it was<\/em> the right thing to do. Discipleship required them to be patient enough with an imperfect church that they were willing to endure the mistake in order to sustain leaders who, unlike a perfect Christ, have weaknesses and blind spots and therefore actually need to be sustained.<\/p>\n And isn\u2019t that a better story anyway? Isn\u2019t it better to imagine a church that develops and grows and learns from its mistakes?<\/p>\n That\u2019s the story, incidentally, that the Lord has always expected us to tell. This may be a bit of a tangent, but I don\u2019t think that people who stand up in a testimony meeting to praise this as \u201cthe only true church\u201d realize that they\u2019re misquoting the Lord, who never actually said that. What he did say was this was the only true and living<\/em> church. (See D&C 1:30) Plenty of other churches have truth in them. Some have gobs of it. But this church is both true and living<\/em>. It is more than just correct principles; it is the living people doing everything in their power to apply them. And the Church, like all living things, develops, grows, and learns from its mistakes.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t think so, and you think that sustaining the prophets and apostles absolutely means that, in every difference of opinion, they\u2019re always right and you\u2019re always wrong, then you need to pray with everything you have that your children never come to you with hard questions. Because when they start asking you why John Taylor repeatedly said the Church would never stop practicing polygamy, or why Brigham Young made all kinds of racist claims that the Church has specifically disavowed, you better have a miracle in your back pocket if \u201cwell, they were wrong\u201d is never an acceptable answer.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n * New Order Mormon. I\u2019ve been repeatedly told I\u2019m one of these, as if this designation were a real thing that deserves my authority and respect, which it isn\u2019t, rather than just a nasty name that intolerant members use to label people they don\u2019t like, which it is. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SoI continue to wade into online and offline discussions about the church\u2019s policy of denying crucial gospel ordinances to innocent children, and the consensus seems to be that I have \u201crejected the prophets,\u201d in the words of one Facebook commenter who seemed really enthusiastic about getting the ball rolling on my inevitable excommunication. Privately, I\u2019ve ... 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\n<\/em><\/p>\n