Kate Kelly Verdict Is In...

[slamarwi]

Well, another way of looking at this is that excommunication and all that it implies can be experienced as brutal and abusive.

It is really dependent upon the attitude of the person being excommunicated. If you feel you are a victim then it probably feels abusive, but if you have humility and understand that you are the problem, it tends to feel very different.

[Kenngo1969]

It is really dependent upon the attitude of the person being excommunicated. If you feel you are a victim then it probably feels abusive, but if you have humility and understand that you are the problem, it tends to feel very different.

I agree with you for the most part, except I think you could be a little more precise (and charitable, perhaps) in your phrasing: People are not problems; people have problems.  "(I)f you have humility and understand that you have the problem, it tends to feel very different."  There!  All fixed!

[slamarwi]

Well said. Thank you.

[Abulafia]

Apologies for not responding. I am in Portugal and the web server here keeps blocking me. No idea why.

From KKs point of view, she is doing nothing wrong, and there is nothing to repent of. Can we not respect that she really does find the way she has been treated abusive? Take her at her word?

I don't think she is a complicated person. She sees an injustice and is challenging it. (For BD)

Robert, I have wanted to respond to your points on Melchizedek. I think his history is intriguing, both in the sense of the name/title, the different apocryphal stories that arose around him, (his Canaanite origin is interesting as indicated by some accounts), whether he was the founder of Jerusalem, and so on.

He was certainly used by some to argue for an alternative priesthood. I think it is important to remember that Judaism whether by canon, (an anachronism for the period) sacred writing or culture and practice, was very diverse.

Edited July 12, 2014 by Abulafia

[Kenngo1969]

Well said. Thank you.

[BlueDreams]

Apologies for not responding. I am in Portugal and the web server her keeps blocking me. No idea why.

From KKs point of view, she is doing nothing wrong, and there is nothing to repent of. Can we not respect that she really does find the way she has been treated abusive? Take her at her word?

I don't think she is a complicated person. She sees an injustice and is challenging it. (For BD)

 

That's alright....I'll be in Taiwan and China in a few days and may have a similar problem soon enough.

 

I'm usually for taking someone for their word. That's the approach I've taken with her in the past. But frankly her take on a number of experiences surrounding this don't add up with what little we have of the other side of the story. I remember one interview where she was discussing one of the letters and she quoted a phrase from it and stated "basically this means X" when it was not at all what it stated. She jumps to extremes...regularly.

 

It's also because she's insisting she's done absolutely nothing wrong, while casting the other players as not only incorrect, but those carrying out callous forms of abuse that taking her word on this is very hard. Especially when what little we do have of the other story does not line up and theirs mild claims in said points that she's not being 100% honest about what's happened also makes me hesitant. And because there is another real human side to this story (that's been turned to a faceless entity through her portrayal) I'm hesitant to take her story as 100% correct because it tends to throw a very negative light on other people involved while entirely exonerating herself.  

 

And everybody is more complicated than that when it involves emotions and from what they present in public. And I'm not working much beyond what's been present through public forms of communication. This isn't the first time she's jumped to casting those against her as not only incorrect but of poor character/the bad guys.  

 

I do believe she sees herself as just having experienced a great injustice and sees herself as challenging it. I am not convinced that this should be seen as the only interpretation of events let alone the most accurate portrayal of what occurred. Things just don't add up for so simple an explanation. 

 

 

 

Hope you're enjoying portugal,

BD

[Scott Lloyd]

From KKs point of view, she is doing nothing wrong, and there is nothing to repent of. Can we not respect that she really does find the way she has been treated abusive? Take her at her word?

Some people who claim to have been abused were, in fact, not abused by any reasonable standard.

 

In that event, to accept uncritically their claim that they were abused (to "take them at their word," to use your phrasing) is to falsely accuse -- or, at least, to believe a falsehood about -- someone else. And that is manifestly unjust.

[why me]

From KKs point of view, she is doing nothing wrong, and there is nothing to repent of. Can we not respect that she really does find the way she has been treated abusive? Take her at her word?

I don't think she is a complicated person. She sees an injustice and is challenging it. (For BD)

 

I have a difficult time believing that she found the experience abusive. She is a lawyer and I am sure that she has been abused by judges, clients, her bosses, the prosecutor, the defense lawyer etc. She is a tough skinned feminist and so, I have a difficult time believing that she found her experience abusive. Of course, being a woman, she may draw on the sympathy card by bringing up that it were men who abused her etc. Many people go through the bishop's court each year. I suppose that all could claim that they were abused but such people may not know what true abuse is. We just need to ask all the women and men who are abused in the home, emotionally, physically and mentally each day of their lives until they free themselves from the abusive situation. Not to mention that the millions of people who are abused in their workplaces by their bosses and co-workers.

 

Kate's experience cannot compare with such abuse as mentioned above. The thing is that she is welcome back to full membership at anytime when she thinks she is ready to begin the process. 

Edited July 13, 2014 by why me

[ERayR]

Apologies for not responding. I am in Portugal and the web server her keeps blocking me. No idea why.

From KKs point of view, she is doing nothing wrong, and there is nothing to repent of. Can we not respect that she really does find the way she has been treated abusive? Take her at her word?

I don't think she is a complicated person. She sees an injustice and is challenging it. (For BD)

 

 

 

I can accept that is the way she sees it.  I can not accept that there is any validity to her point of view.

 

As a parent with a few kids I don't see her as a complicated person either.  What I do recognize is a person who doesn't like the word no and has always (from childhood) gotten her way by ignoring or attacking anyone who told her no.  I have seen it before.

[Sleeper Cell]

From KKs point of view, she is doing nothing wrong, and there is nothing to repent of. Can we not respect that she really does find the way she has been treated abusive? Take her at her word?

Only if we ignore her other words.  

[Abulafia]

I think that for the first couple of days KK was visibly shaken at the action taken against her. Like most people she has now decided to make the best of things and to get on with life. She had the worry of a sick parent at about the same time as her excommunication.

From personal experience I would say that there is nothing like the thought of losing or worrying about the health of loved ones to put things in perspective.

I noted back in this very long thread that someone brought up the issue of the church being a 'club'. I think that for those fully immersed in the church that it acts, as does the priesthood, as a conduit between humans and the divine realm.

The men who were responsible for excommunicating Kate must be 100% certain (wherever the buck stops up the line in terms of general advice and guidelines) that this represents the will of God and not just the will of the institutional church. Particularly since excommunication cuts all the eternal links and sealings with loved ones. That severing of links with loved ones can be a powerful deterrent and so I personally admire KK for tackling the institutional church

head on.

What intrigued me was that in an interview KK was quite clear that she didn't accept that thoses ties were severed in the eyes of God. Just maybe, she has been forced into a position where she has to confront the reality of church teachings and has had to separate God's will from the will of the institutional church.

To be honest, at a personal level, it's one of the reasons I would have a hard time returning to activity. I would never want to put any institution between me and the Divine, particularly when that institution becomes an obstacle to truly loving and showing kindness to others.

I absolutely appreciate that may not be the case for others.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Abulafia

[Tacenda]

I think that for the first couple of days KK was visibly shaken at the action taken against her. Like most people she has now decided to make the best of things and to get on with life. She had the worry of a sick parent at about the same time as her excommunication.

From personal experience I would say that there is nothing like the thought of losing or worrying about the health of loved ones to put things in perspective.

I noted back in this very long thread that someone brought up the issue of the church being a 'club'. I think that for those fully immersed in the church that it acts, as does the priesthood, as a conduit between humans and the divine realm.

The men who were responsible for excommunicating Kate must be 100% certain (wherever the buck stops up the line in terms of general advice and guidelines) that this represents the will of God and not just the will of the institutional church. Particularly since excommunication cuts all the eternal links and sealings with loved ones. That severing of links with loved ones can be a powerful deterrent and so I personally admire KK for tackling the institutional church

head on.

What intrigued me was that in an interview KK was quite clear that she didn't accept that thoses ties were severed in the eyes of God. Just maybe, she has been forced into a position where she has to confront the reality of church teachings and has had to separate God's will from the will of the institutional church.

To be honest, at a personal level, it's one of the reasons I would have a hard time returning to activity. I would never want to put any institution between me and the Divine, particularly when that institution becomes an obstacle to truly loving and showing kindness to others.

I absolutely appreciate that may not be the case for others.

IMO, we already have too many obstacles in our way to get to the Divine. And I believe most everyone will be with their family whether they believe in this church or not, where does it say we won't in the bilble or b.o.m. unless we do some masionic like ordinance in the temple?

[Tacenda]

I think that for the first couple of days KK was visibly shaken at the action taken against her. Like most people she has now decided to make the best of things and to get on with life. She had the worry of a sick parent at about the same time as her excommunication.

From personal experience I would say that there is nothing like the thought of losing or worrying about the health of loved ones to put things in perspective.

I noted back in this very long thread that someone brought up the issue of the church being a 'club'. I think that for those fully immersed in the church that it acts, as does the priesthood, as a conduit between humans and the divine realm.

The men who were responsible for excommunicating Kate must be 100% certain (wherever the buck stops up the line in terms of general advice and guidelines) that this represents the will of God and not just the will of the institutional church. Particularly since excommunication cuts all the eternal links and sealings with loved ones. That severing of links with loved ones can be a powerful deterrent and so I personally admire KK for tackling the institutional church

head on.

What intrigued me was that in an interview KK was quite clear that she didn't accept that thoses ties were severed in the eyes of God. Just maybe, she has been forced into a position where she has to confront the reality of church teachings and has had to separate God's will from the will of the institutional church.

To be honest, at a personal level, it's one of the reasons I would have a hard time returning to activity. I would never want to put any institution between me and the Divine, particularly when that institution becomes an obstacle to truly loving and showing kindness to others.

I absolutely appreciate that may not be the case for others.

IMO, we already have too many obstacles in our way to get to the Divine. And I believe most everyone will be with their family whether they believe in this church or not, where does it say we won't in the bilble or b.o.m. unless we do some masionic like ordinance in the temple?

[why me]

I think that for the first couple of days KK was visibly shaken at the action taken against her. Like most people she has now decided to make the best of things and to get on with life. She had the worry of a sick parent at about the same time as her excommunication.

To be honest, at a personal level, it's one of the reasons I would have a hard time returning to activity. I would never want to put any institution between me and the Divine, particularly when that institution becomes an obstacle to truly loving and showing kindness to others.

I absolutely appreciate that may not be the case for others.

I would think that she would be a little shocked about the decision. I don't think that she expected it. But if so, what did that say about her? She must have known that she was crossing borders when she went against the advice of not staging a protest on temple square. And she must have known that she was crossing borders when she began the 'women and the priesthood missionary discussions' that resembled the missionary discussions of the lds church. So, I don't understand why she would feel shaken by the experience. I would suppose that her radar was off with the messages that the church was putting out in conference talks, in ensign articles etc. Or maybe she thought that she was building such a huge power base that she was untouchable.  

 

All churches have an excommunication process. Or at least they did. It is also in the bible. And I do believe that if kate were around at the time of Paul, she would have been taken to task by him too. Kate began a protest movement that declared that women must have the priesthood. It was very black and white. And she would have continued with it until she got her way. It was never about god but it was about herself and her public image and about what she believed in. If kate believed in revelation and if she believed in the leaders, she would have never put the word must in her mission statement. That word was a symbol of her mindset: the lds church is run by men, not god.

 

But I do believe that if kate were allowed to continue within the church and she continued with her protest and agitation, more lds would follow with various of causes and protests: reinstatement of polygamy, SSM, WoW, the ending of a lay church etc. It would have been the skies the limit and many such groups would have forgotten that the lds church is run by god since utlimately it would have been god that they were protesting against since the lds claim that the lds church is the true church of heavenly father. As the catholics do too.

 

And this was kate's problem: she forgot that the church has heavenly father at its head so her must was a dictate to god to change his ways.

Edited July 13, 2014 by why me

[why me]

Abu, if I were outside the church I would have been supporting kate too. In fact, I would have supported any group with a faithful member at its head that caused the lds church a headache. And I would have cheered kate on because I would have known that if she succeeded the church would then be looked upon as a church that buckles to social pressure. And I would have known that the decision would cause inner turmoil inside the church. So, yes, I would be her biggest fan and yes, now I would be saying that she was abused by the process. Why not?

 

And since this is the age of the 'victim' I would have been stating over and over again that she was a victim of a cruel and mean system that forced her out. I would score as many points as I could against the church regardless of what decision was made.

[BlueDreams]

Abulafia, 

Just for clarity's sake, I don't think she ever specified to a parent. It's a sick relative of some sort without much explanation about the detail. Not that I think she needed to give one, just that the details aren't known beyond that point. 

 

As for your other points, I don't know. Not even with the depiction of what the church, as an institution is to me (as one "fully immersed" per se). Yes, it can be a conduit in it's spiritual structure. But to me it's not simply that. It's a very real struggle to become a Zion people. To me the first assumes a strictly hierarchical purpose or at least a role that is separate and distinct from myself. In the other it defines individual purpose and need in creating a divine community. I believe that loving others and showing kindness should be a universal pursuit, obviously. But creating a divine community goes beyond just that. It's creating a purposeful, united people. And it's something that, as an individual or many individuals mutually being kind and loving, can't be done. It entails, as its definition, moving as a unit. At no point has such a process in scripture been free of creating boundaries and reinforcing those boundaries or correcting course. So, for me, the church is both a tool as well as the clay that's being sculpted....because we are the church (institutional and otherwise).

 

Oddly, I don't think has had those ties completely severed in a way. Yes, the temporal blessings tied to them are currently not there. But the promise of them are. And the ordinances can be reinstated any time in her living and dead future. Right now, she's just un-tethered from immediate access to those blessings.

 

KK has matzi i'll give her that. But frankly, I view her more as having her pride blinding her. I still view her as largely a good person. All of us get blinded from time to time. But there has to be room for course correction. And I'm not even talking about the method toward excommunication. I mean at every last point throughout her movement. There was no room for any other view beyond their goal for "total parity" as Kate would often put it. No real room to question their positions, no real allowance for thoughtful variance in interpreting the direction that we, as a people, should be going. Their assumptions/biases about what equality is, should look like, it's prominence, and the methodology when working in the church were not really up for the chop. It's no surprise that their question wasn't actually taken by almost anyone as "just asking a question" at best it was a leading question.  Personally when I read a similar interview about her purpose in doing this, I'm less in admiration of her point, but put off by the inherent flaw that as you would hope in a field of international development, she'd get: You can't push outside views into a community and hope that they'll stick. It NEVER works. And yes KK was/is apart of our community (You don't have to be on the records to be apart of the community in some meaningful way IMHO) but many of her views and methods are. And far from admiring that, I wonder if she realizes how much her ideals marginalizes every other view as irrelevant, naiive, or not good enough.   

 

I also think she was separating God's will and the institutional church's before excommunication was a concern. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I don't think that all the church does is an exact, 100% measure of what God would ultimately desire for His people to have. 

 

Personally, I hope there's a day you'll eat some of your words and come back . Crazier things have happened. I appreciate many of your thoughts and approach. I believe in a beautifully messy process toward the divine goal of Zion. And I believe in doing my part in it, both in individually motivated ideas and work as well as communal responsibility in a cause I believe in.

 

With luv,

BD

[Scott Lloyd]

I would think that she would be a little shocked about the decision. I don't think that she expected it. But if so, what did that say about her? She must have known that she was crossing borders when she went against the advice of not staging a protest on temple square. And she must have known that she was crossing borders when she began the 'women and the priesthood missionary discussions' that resembled the missionary discussions of the lds church. So, I don't understand why she would feel shaken by the experience. I would suppose that her radar was off with the messages that the church was putting out in conference talks, in ensign articles etc. Or maybe she thought that she was building such a huge power base that she was untouchable.

All churches have an excommunication process. Or at least they did. It is also in the bible. And I do believe that if kate were around at the time of Paul, she would have been taken to task by him too. Kate began a protest movement that declared that women must have the priesthood. It was very black and white. And she would have continued with it until she got her way. It was never about god but it was about herself and her public image and about what she believed in. If kate believed in revelation and if she believed in the leaders, she would have never put the word must in her mission statement. That word was a symbol of her mindset: the lds church is run by men, not god.

But I do believe that if kate were allowed to continue within the church and she continued with her protest and agitation, more lds would follow with various of causes and protests: reinstatement of polygamy, SSM, WoW, the ending of a lay church etc. It would have been the skies the limit and many such groups would have forgotten that the lds church is run by god since utlimately it would have been god that they were protesting against since the lds claim that the lds church is the true church of heavenly father. As the catholics do too.

And this was kate's problem: she forgot that the church has heavenly father at its head so her must was a dictate to god to change his ways.

Non-Mormon scholar and longtime Mormon watcher Jan Shipps put it astutely when she said this was about boundary maintenance. In effect Kelly forced the Church's hand by her own refusal to moderate her own my-way-or-the-highway approach.

Someone here made a good point about her propensity to always get her own way ultimately being her downfall.

And come to think of it, that attitude is antithetical to the priesthood.

[halconero]

From KKs point of view, she is doing nothing wrong, and there is nothing to repent of. Can we not respect that she really does find the way she has been treated abusive? Take her at her word.

My issue with her statements on the "abusive" practices of her disciplinary council is that it is a part of a larger trend of applying extreme terms to opposing view points or more mildly negative actions or notions. The label "rape culture" and "abuse" do have very real and very powerful concepts behind them, but their overuse dilutes violent sexual assault and emotional/physical abuse.

Two examples, one relevant, the other not so much:

1) There's a teachers strike going on here in British Columbia right now. In an email to the teachers in the area, the union leader said that the government's negotiating tactics were fascistic in nature, and that we in Canada were essentially living under a totalitarian dictatorship.

For someone like my dad, who lived under an actual dictator in Chile, this not only felt wrong, but both hurt and infuriated him. He is no fan of either he provincial of federal governments right now, but to compare them to brutal fascists around the world diluted the experiences of people living under those regimes.

1) More relevant: One of my close family members in my immediate, nuclear family was both emotionally abused and raped. The tendency to generalize the terms "rape culture" and "abuse" once again diminish her experiences, and the equation of what Kate Kelly experienced with emotional abuse and rape are frankly offensive.

[Robert F. Smith]

...........................................................  

Robert, I have wanted to respond to your points on Melchizedek. I think his history is intriguing, both in the sense of the name/title, the different apocryphal stories that arose around him, (his Canaanite origin is interesting as indicated by some accounts), whether he was the founder of Jerusalem, and so on.

He was certainly used by some to argue for an alternative priesthood. I think it is important to remember that Judaism whether by canon, (an anachronism for the period) sacred writing or culture and practice, was very diverse.

I agree.

You might be interested in the following material, though you may already be familiar with them:

 

Welch, John W. “The Melchizedek Material in Alma 13:13-19,” in By Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley, ed. J. Lundquist and S. Ricks (SLC: Deseret Book, 1990), II:238-272.  Online at  http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/transcript/the-melchizedek-material-in-alma-13-13-19/ .

 

Pearson, Birger A.  “Melchizedek: Ancient Sources,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism (Macmillan, 1992), online at http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Melchizedek .

 

Satterfield, Bruce K.  “Melchizedek: LDS Sources,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism (Macmillan, 1992), online at http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Melchizedek .

Edited July 14, 2014 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

Some people who claim to have been abused were, in fact, not abused by any reasonable standard.

 

In that event, to accept uncritically their claim that they were abused (to "take them at their word," to use your phrasing) is to falsely accuse -- or, at least, to believe a falsehood about -- someone else. And that is manifestly unjust.

Yes, Scott, but isn't perception everything?

[Robert F. Smith]

......................................................................................   

The men who were responsible for excommunicating Kate must be 100% certain (wherever the buck stops up the line in terms of general advice and guidelines) that this represents the will of God and not just the will of the institutional church. Particularly since excommunication cuts all the eternal links and sealings with loved ones. That severing of links with loved ones can be a powerful deterrent and so I personally admire KK for tackling the institutional church

head on.

....................................................................   

On the other hand, being exed in the LDS tradition is not the same as shunning in the Amish tradition.  Excommunicants are welcome at Church and at social activities and are very well treated.  People I know don't even consider it a permanent state or stain.  So the theoretical "severing of links with loved ones" may not be more than a bump in the road (as it were), and not the absolute state it might seem to outsiders.  I imagine that this is equally true of LDS congregations in England.

 

Of course, for those who set out a rock hard position, such as Fawn M. Brodie, all one can say, with the late Davis Bitton, is that she is a fine lady who wrote some great fiction.

[Sleeper Cell]

IMO, we already have too many obstacles in our way to get to the Divine. And I believe most everyone will be with their family whether they believe in this church or not, where does it say we won't in the bilble or b.o.m. unless we do some masionic like ordinance in the temple?

 

I thought that the purpose of our covenants and ordinances was to remove obstacles between us and the Divine. 

 

In my experience, the obstacles in my way to get to the Divine are a result of my personal disobedience and sometimes treating sacred things lightly.  

Edited July 14, 2014 by Sleeper Cell

[ERayR]

IMO, we already have too many obstacles in our way to get to the Divine. And I believe most everyone will be with their family whether they believe in this church or not, where does it say we won't in the bilble or b.o.m. unless we do some masionic like ordinance in the temple?

 

It doesn't.  What those ordinances do is determine what the relationships of those associations will be.

[why me]

Non-Mormon scholar and longtime Mormon watcher Jan Shipps put it astutely when she said this was about boundary maintenance. In effect Kelly forced the Church's hand by her own refusal to moderate her own my-way-or-the-highway approach.

 

And jan was right about the boundary maintaince. I remember writing about this on the boards by stating that if kate is not disciplined, it will send a message that the lds church is fair game to criticize from within and the message would be that it is okay to work for social change through social action campaigns from within the church.

 

But this problem began with John who seemed to push the boundaries without much response from the lds church. In other words, the lds church dropped the ball with john because the boundaries were overlooked and crossed by him without the necessary response. I have no idea why he got away with so much without chuch discipline. But it did send a message to others that much would be tolerated now and perhaps this is where kate went wrong. She actually believed that she could push the boundaries because the church did not want a PR nightmare by disciplining her. In fact, she most likely began her media campaign because she felt that this might give her immunity as it has done John.  

 

And as we can see, the media is not actually interested in her anymore. They have moved on to other pastures and the same will be the fate of john if he is disciplined. Mormon issues are not on top of the agenda for the general  media. But they would certainly be if Romney were president.

[MorningStar]

And jan was right about the boundary maintaince. I remember writing about this on the boards by stating that if kate is not disciplined, it will send a message that the lds church is fair game to criticize from within and the message would be that it is okay to work for social change through social action campaigns from within the church.

 

But this problem began with John who seemed to push the boundaries without much response from the lds church. In other words, the lds church dropped the ball with john because the boundaries were overlooked and crossed by him without the necessary response. I have no idea why he got away with so much without chuch discipline. But it did send a message to others that much would be tolerated now and perhaps this is where kate went wrong. She actually believed that she could push the boundaries because the church did not want a PR nightmare by disciplining her. In fact, she most likely began her media campaign because she felt that this might give her immunity as it has done John.  

 

And as we can see, the media is not actually interested in her anymore. They have moved on to other pastures and the same will be the fate of john if he is disciplined. Mormon issues are not on top of the agenda for the general  media. But they would certainly be if Romney were president.

I think the difference was, John wasn't running to the New York Times constantly or staging protests.