Apostasy, Boundary Maintenance, And Strong Communities

[DonBradley]

In the thread about the excommunication of the Calderwoods, Smac made a comment that I think is important enough that it merits discussion on its own, apart from the details of their case.

 

Smac:

Look, I don't want them to leave the Church. I want them in it. I want everyone in it. But we are a community of faith. We cohere around faith. When we disregard apostasy we weaken our community.

 

 

Those who know my personal history and the tenor of my posting in the last few years will not be surprised to hear that I would like to see us make our LDS sub-culture more tolerant of doubt and disagreement. So, when I say how much I like what Smac says here and how important I think his insight is, I hope it's clear that it's decidedly not because I'm trigger happy to see people be labeled apostates and kicked out of the church. 

 

What Smac says above is simple realism. Abundant sociological research shows, unsurprisingly, that strong community boundary maintenance helps maintain strong communities: i.e., if communities want to thrive, they should set high standards and hold people to them.

 

My point isn't to comment on the Calderwoods' case: I don't know enough about it; and I'd prefer to leave discussion of it to the other thread. 

 

But I think it's worth pointing out how this principle might apply to the recent cases I know more about, particularly that of Kate Kelly. While there are definitely some gray areas regarding appropriate ways to express disagreement with church policy, and while I think we need more cultural "space" for such disagreement, there are also clear boundaries. For instance, no one (in their right mind) with an LDS background could seriously think that it's okay with the church to do protest-style actions and form national pressure groups to change church policy. 

 

When people knowingly flout the boundaries, and then refuse to take into account or even compromise with instructions on this from their church leaders, the church is not obligated to allow them to perpetually continue these actions as members in good standing. Nor would the church be wise to do so. To not take disciplinary action in such cases fails to reinforce the boundaries, sends the message that the actions taken are okay, and weakens the community. 

 

While I personally, for several reasons, wish Kate Kelly's stake president had taken a lesser disciplinary action, such as disfellowshipping, I think it's simply unrealistic when people expect the church to allow with impunity dissent in any and every form, no matter how at odds with the church's norms and doctrine the forms of dissent may take. Confronted with clear, and particularly with extreme, violations of its norms and boundaries the church is both right and wise to take steps to reassert and reinforce those norms and boundaries. This is part of how communities remain vital.

 

Thoughts...?

 

Don

 

 

 

 

 

[Tacenda]

I have to agree with you there. If these dissenters want change there are better ways to do it. Our church is always up for suggestions in wards etc. And it will sometimes go up the chain. Although I love the big tent idea, I see how there can be problems with it in some cases, hate to admit it. But see how the unbelievers shouldn't think they can change a church necessarily, when they aren't invested belief wise.

I know that a lot of people take issue with the WoW occasionally on here, and I read somewhere someone saying how, I think it was B.H. Roberts, can't remember, he drank at one time. But then the church got stricter and you needed to adhere to the WoW if you wanted a recommend. I believe this is what makes the church the way it is. It's not a big party, they don't need to drink to have fun. Sorry this is a tangent, but I just think if members don't like some of the doctrine, they might have to find a place that offers what they want.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Tacenda

[why me]

Of course, every church needs boundaries and the lds church is no different. People are now flouting the boundaries through social media and this has become the problem. Also, I think that members who use social media to discuss their disbelief and make this disbelief public do so for publicity and 'fame'. Usually these people have already made a commitment to leave the lds church. Or they wish to leave and want the church to react to their blog etc.

 

Ego has become a major issue in these times of social media. The church has never minded individual doubt, prayer and reflection. Or even sharing such doubt in a positive way. But no church would tolerate attacks on its doctrine through social blogs etc without calling the members in for a chat.

 

The question is: why do some members wish to have blocks of dissent inside the church? Why do some members wish the church to be an open and democratic institution where majority rules? Or dissenters can be allowed to influence others to follow their ideas?

[jwhitlock]

Well stated, Don.

[Kevin Christensen]

"Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to a choice between incompatible modes of community life." Thomas Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 94.

 

In the cases of Dehlin and Kelley, I see a clear choice between incompatible modes of community life. I agree with Don that my issue was not the attitudes but the persistent public tactics.  As I noted in a one of my posts, they used the media to summon the church to a trial to be held in the Court of Public Opinion.  They went about telling us that our mode of community life was incompatible with theirs. If we could simply be open and tolerant enough to conform to their views, then they could cease their fully legitimate protests and pressure.  And of course, that sort of thing is perfectly legitimate when they do it.  Oppressive and tyrannical when we do it.

 

When I participated on the Mormon Stories board under the Coe interview, I found very quickly that I was not welcome.  When it was mentioned that I'd offered to be interviewed for Mormon Stories, at least one person said I was not appropriate.  My Mormon story was not appropriate for their community.  So my comments were deleted, my presence in essence erased.

 

"When paradigms change, there are usually shifts in determining the legitimacy of both problems and proposed solutions." Kuhn, 109.

 

That is one of the reasons why some otherwise Big Tent Mormons are so uncompromisingly intolerant of the the Old FARMS.  They have decided that the problems we claim to have solved and the solutions we offer are not even legitimate.  So the wonderfully Tolerant Big Tent they propose excludes us. 

 

Dehlin's self definition always involved his ability to openly face problems.  So during the Bushman and Givens interviews, I noticed he questioned them about "the problems."  It was, I noticed, the same set of problems.  He seemed impressed in both cases with the solutions that Bushman and Givens offered, but I couldn't but realize that the answers from the first interview did not carry over to the second.  He asked them again as though the answers had not been given.  Then recently when I read his appeal, I noticed that he included a list of issues that came up when first began exploring questions.  Yep.  Same list.  Hundreds of interviews, years of effort, and nothing has changed for him.

 

For him, the existence of the questions is paradigmatic, and nothing we offer counts.

 

Back in 1995 in "Paradigms Crossed" I had this:

 

 

I do not think that you have to believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon to find it valuable and inspired, nor do I think that you must believe in the historicity in the Book of Mormon to be a Mormon, nor that belief alone suffices to make you a good person, nor that disbelief makes you a bad person. It should be possible to critique a particular reading or approach to the Book of Mormon without necessarily depreciating the Book of Mormon as scripture. But while a range of factors in our spiritual lives can serve to sustain individual commitment to a community, we must recognize that it is the Book of Mormon that defines this community.

 

Every community celebrates and re-enacts particular historical events which are crucial to its corporate identity and its vision of reality.178

 

"What distinguished Mormonism," writes Richard Bushman, "was not so much the Gospel Mormons taught, which in many respects resembled other Christians' teachings, but what they believed had happened—to Joseph Smith, to Book of Mormon characters, and to Moses and Enoch [and later to the pioneers, during their archetypal exodus to the west]. . . . The core of Mormon belief was a conviction about actual events. . . . Mormonism was history, not philosophy."179

 

The historicity of the Book of Mormon is just one aspect of our religious experience, but as the keystone of the faith, it takes the predominant role in defining the community. Questions regarding the historicity of the Book of Mormon deal with how much the Mormon community possesses that is above and beyond that which is available elsewhere. This is how Doctrine and Covenants 1:30 expresses it, defining the Latter-day Saint charter not in terms of exclusive truth and virtue, but in terms of key distinctions (D&C 1:22-23, 29-30), whose validity is signified by the Book of Mormon.

 

Questions regarding the historicity of the Book of Mormon, then, involve the key issue in paradigm debate: that is, whether our community provides better descriptions of the divine nature, better access to the divine, and whether the religious problems that Mormonism solves, or promises to solve eventually,180 are the most important ones to have solved. The questions raised in New Approaches usually have to do with the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and thereby relate most directly not to issues of faith, but to community. As Hutchinson puts it:

 

To the degree we disparage the holiness and value of the Book of Mormon, we alienate ourselves from the LDS tradition and define ourselves as outside of that tradition. (p. 4)

 

I regard investigation of the historicity of the Book of Mormon as essential toward developing contexts that unveil the messages in the text. But notice that Alma, far from offering an "all or nothing" gospel, invites his listeners to begin with "no more than [a] desire to believe," and to apply that desire to even "a portion of my words" (Alma 32:27). Alma even leaves it to his listeners to decide on that plantable portion for themselves, and of the whole of his words he freely acknowledges, "You cannot know of their surety at first." The important thing is that they plant something that can grow in their hearts. As long as that portion can take root and grow, we can hope for everything else over time.

 

I do not mind the diversity of thought in Mormonism. I approve of a distribution of risks. If someone prefers to invest his or her faith in the community, or in some personal experience, or in the strengths of "eternalism," that is fine with me. Chances are that someone who anchors his or her faith in community, or the philosophical strengths of Mormonism, or New Testament study, or whatever, will develop expertise that I do not have, and will offer gifts to the community that I cannot.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Kevin Christensen

[Avatar4321]

It seems to me that even if we let them remain in the church they are already cutting themselves off from the blessings. These rebellions aren't as much trying to change the church, they are acts of pride. They want to be the ones changing the church. And not because they want to see the changes as much as they want to be seen as causing them.

Pride is an extremely dangerous problem within the church. Watching these high profile excommunication as well as study of the Book of Mormon should make all of us extremely diligent in rooting it our of ourselves. Or amen to our priesthood

[JLHPROF]

D&C 86

6 But the Lord saith unto them, pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender (for verily your faith is weak), lest you destroy the wheat also.

7 Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned.

 

Sometimes our leaders understand that better than we do and allow the tares (apostates) to remain.  And then sometimes they are required to pluck them up. 

Edited May 23, 2015 by JLHPROF

[jwhitlock]

 

For him, the existence of the questions is paradigmatic, and nothing we offer counts.

 

 

Thanks for the insight, Kevin. This explains a great deal.

[Calm]

For him, the existence of the questions is paradigmatic, and nothing we offer counts.

 

When exploration of doubt becomes exploration of the experience of doubt, it often seems like people get locked into the experience as if that has become the ultimate goal for them. 

 

And for some reason it is seen as an honoured and preferred state.

 

It comes across to me something like learning how to teach math while never learning how to really do math for oneself because one was paying too much attention to the techniques of teaching and not learning what was being taught.

[Jeanne]

I agree with Don on certain points here..within boundaries is important..but what was Kelly to do?  If she just brought her feelings up in RS she would have been ostracized anyway.  And maybe she did...but whatever boundaries exist, the church needs to listen..at least listen..her voice rang out for many others..and these mothers, sisters, and wives matter,

[Jeanne]

I have to agree with you there. If these dissenters want change there are better ways to do it. Our church is always up for suggestions in wards etc. And it will sometimes go up the chain. Although I love the big tent idea, I see how there can be problems with it in some cases, hate to admit it. But see how the unbelievers shouldn't think they can change a church necessarily, when they aren't invested belief wise.

I know that a lot of people take issue with the WoW occasionally on here, and I read somewhere someone saying how, I think it was B.H. Roberts, can't remember, he drank at one time. But then the church got stricter and you needed to adhere to the WoW if you wanted a recommend. I believe this is what makes the church the way it is. It's not a big party, they don't need to drink to have fun. Sorry this is a tangent, but I just think if members don't like some of the doctrine, they might have to find a place that offers what they want.

What is it that YOU want Tacienda..?  There are boundaries that you and I cross probably everyday..do we want love and fairness..do we still sit in judgement?  Are the fences we sit on conditional with what matters to us or compromise for we  still hold dear?  I admire you so much so I care about how you feel. 

[Tacenda]

I agree with Don on certain points here..within boundaries is important..but what was Kelly to do?  If she just brought her feelings up in RS she would have been ostracized anyway.  And maybe she did...but whatever boundaries exist, the church needs to listen..at least listen..her voice rang out for many others..and these mothers, sisters, and wives matter,

I think her problem was that she didn't "keep sweet". Ok, that was bad. She should have done it slowly IMO, the request for equality, baby steps. Now I wonder if it put women back in time even more. Because women in the church now see her as an enemy of the church. If she had had patience and steady faithful persistence, who knows.

[readstoomuch]

I agree with Don on certain points here..within boundaries is important..but what was Kelly to do?  If she just brought her feelings up in RS she would have been ostracized anyway.  And maybe she did...but whatever boundaries exist, the church needs to listen..at least listen..her voice rang out for many others..and these mothers, sisters, and wives matter,

KK is someone who I followed and read as much as I could.  My daughter became/is involved in OrdainWomen. I think they have some points.  They often prooftext out of the Relief Society minutes and early documents about the blessings that women practiced.  I sympathize with this and believe there is some possibility that women may exercise priesthood power, but not be ordained in the future.  If one actually reads the minutes in their entirety, the sisters voiced their support and thankfulness that the priesthood had been restored among men.  They voiced strong support and gratefulness for their leaders.  In other words, they practiced some blessings in a context that we now don`t, but were vocal about supporting their leaders.  My daughter is now inactive and doesn`t wear her garments.  She felt inspired to voice her opposition because she was inspired to do so.  When she described it to me and then I see what it has ended up being like, it sounds like this-"I love the Church so much that if women don`t get ordination I have to leave it."  A number if not most women I have read about seem to be in the same situation.  This after 95% of women didn`t want it.  So how much does the Church have to change for the 5% who want change, but aren`t willing to work in the system?

[Tacenda]

What is it that YOU want Tacienda..?  There are boundaries that you and I cross probably everyday..do we want love and fairness..do we still sit in judgement?  Are the fences we sit on conditional with what matters to us or compromise for we  still hold dear?  I admire you so much so I care about how you feel. 

I admire you Jeanne, for not sitting on that fence and doing what I said above.  You apparently saw things that didn't sit well with you and then you were authentic and left the church.  Me, I continue being unauthentic, and on the fence.  I hold dear the activity I've had in the church.  But see that when that activity level dropped so did my relationships in the church.  Which I feel is not what I thought would happen.  Kind of shocked.  I think the church does reach out to the inactives etc.  But the inbetweens they don't know what to do with.  

[Avatar4321]

I agree with Don on certain points here..within boundaries is important..but what was Kelly to do?  If she just brought her feelings up in RS she would have been ostracized anyway.  And maybe she did...but whatever boundaries exist, the church needs to listen..at least listen..her voice rang out for many others..and these mothers, sisters, and wives matter,

What evidence do you have that she would have been ostracized rather than her sisters in relief society lovingly helping her see things the right way?

[Tacenda]

I need to add to what I said to Jeanne. Yes it's good to be authentic, but also see that some members that quit believing stay on the rolls of the church because it won't be as devastating for family members. There's always a ray of hope for those that are just inactive. But when you resign it's almost like you become an apostacy bug, that no one wants to get close to. Makes one feel even more sympathetic to the new converts and what they must go through to join the church. Losing family, livelihoods etc. And yes it does happen to LDS that leave also.

There are no easy answers. More and more it's becoming you are all in or you are all out kind of thing. LDS are becoming more and more orthodox, and the unorthodox just need to get up to speed. It's almost as if people are thinking the end is nearer then before. It goes in spurts. And the church is hastening the work. Sending younger missionaries, allowing 18 or older to take out endowments. Getting the younger kids involved more. Inviting the 8 yr. olds to PH and Women's sessions at conference time. I've even read that some inactives have been approached about having there names removed. So it's a much different world in the church then ever before.

[DonBradley]

I agree with Don on certain points here..within boundaries is important..but what was Kelly to do?  If she just brought her feelings up in RS she would have been ostracized anyway.  And maybe she did...but whatever boundaries exist, the church needs to listen..at least listen..her voice rang out for many others..and these mothers, sisters, and wives matter,

 

Jeanne,

 

Having space to express disagreement with aspects of one's religious group is, I think, important and healthy. For this reason, I greatly like the profiles section of the Ordain Women website. It gave church members a place where they could state their disagreement with current priesthood policy, and tell why, in their minds, their support for women's ordination is not contrary to their Mormonism, but grows out of their Mormonism. So far, in my opinion, so good. No one was disciplined merely because a website went up.

 

I disagreed with the subsequent strategy the organization chose of doing protest-style "actions" and seeking the media spotlight. However, based on what I know regarding the dialogue that this publicity created between church officers and participants in Ordain Women, I think that if, after the first General Conference "action," OW had backed off from such pressure-group actions, little harm would have been done, and the net effect of OW might, to this point, have been positive.

 

Instead, OW's leaders chose to apply continuous pressure, and even try to ramp it up. Kate Kelly did not, from anything I can see in her accounts of her church-leader interactions, attempt to any degree to compromise with her church leaders or take any of their concerns into account.

 

The LDS community has a structure and norms, and OW's leaders insisted on flouting both, and continuing to do so.

 

I agree with you completely that more space needs to be opened up for dialogue. I understand the frustration of members who feel disenfranchised in their own church because the church is so huge, because are layers upon layers of leadership and bureaucracy, and because influence and communication seem designed to flow in only one direction in the present organization: that is, from the top down. We are decidedly not at an organizational optimum right now in some ways.

 

So--yes--I understand that frustration. And I don't necessarily know what to do about it. But I think that bucking up against the church's structure, norms, and self-understanding by protesting and lobbying it in the same way one might protest or lobby against the town mayor or Chick-Fil-A is decidedly not the way to go. People who apply such tactics seem fundamentally confused about what sort of organization they're dealing with.

 

Are there faithful, and effective, ways of expressing discontent and hope for change? I think there are. And I certainly think there should be ways of expressing such things without getting "in trouble." 

 

Forming a national pressure group to use protest-style actions bring the media spotlight to church policy seems to me a good example of how not to do this. Surely people can do better than that.

 

Don

[DonBradley]

"Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to a choice between incompatible modes of community life." Thomas Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 94.

 

In the cases of Dehlin and Kelley, I see a clear choice between incompatible modes of community life. I agree with Don that my issue was not the attitudes but the persistent public tactics.  As I noted in a one of my posts, they used the media to summon the church to a trial to be held in the Court of Public Opinion.  They went about telling us that our mode of community life was incompatible with theirs. If we could simply be open and tolerant enough to conform to their views, then they could cease their fully legitimate protests and pressure.  

 

Kevin,

 

This is very, very insightful. And what you wrote in Paradigms Crossed is just beautiful.

 

Thank you for being part of this thread and the larger discussion over time of such issues.

 

Don

Edited May 23, 2015 by DonBradley

[Jeanne]

I admire you Jeanne, for not sitting on that fence and doing what I said above.  You apparently saw things that didn't sit well with you and then you were authentic and left the church.  Me, I continue being unauthentic, and on the fence.  I hold dear the activity I've had in the church.  But see that when that activity level dropped so did my relationships in the church.  Which I feel is not what I thought would happen.  Kind of shocked.  I think the church does reach out to the inactives etc.  But the inbetweens they don't know what to do with.  

No Tacenda...I, too, sit on a fence..we are just on different fences.   I would not be on this board if I still did not have questions..or needed answers because of over 40 years of belief.  This only means that how we feel and what we have experienced has no separated us..in these fields that we roam, the fences are not obstacles; they are those boundaries that help us make decisions..what we value and the essence of what we want to become...nothing wrong with that..ever..You are in many ways my hero and wish that I could have had you to talk to many moons ago.  If KK could have talked to her mother or friends, companions like this..she may have gone a lot slower..for which I agree.

[ERayR]

I agree with Don on certain points here..within boundaries is important..but what was Kelly to do?  If she just brought her feelings up in RS she would have been ostracized anyway.  And maybe she did...but whatever boundaries exist, the church needs to listen..at least listen..her voice rang out for many others..and these mothers, sisters, and wives matter,

 

Recognize that it was not her prerogative to publicly dictate the changes she was advocating. 

[DonBradley]

Recognize that it was not her prerogative to publicly dictate the changes she was advocating. 

 

I believe what Jeanne was asking was what Kate Kelly should have done, not what she should not have done.

[Avatar4321]

No Tacenda...I, too, sit on a fence..we are just on different fences.   I would not be on this board if I still did not have questions..or needed answers because of over 40 years of belief.  This only means that how we feel and what we have experienced has no separated us..in these fields that we roam, the fences are not obstacles; they are those boundaries that help us make decisions..what we value and the essence of what we want to become...nothing wrong with that..ever..You are in many ways my hero and wish that I could have had you to talk to many moons ago.  If KK could have talked to her mother or friends, companions like this..she may have gone a lot slower..for which I agree.

This wouldn't be the last place I'd go to answer questions but close to it. First place I'd go is the scriptures and prayer.

Men can lie to us. But God won't lie to us.

[Avatar4321]

I believe what Jeanne was asking was what Kate Kelly should have done, not what she should not have done.

But the question was premised on the assumption that her ward sisters and others in the ward and stake level would ostracized her if she merely talked with them about her issues.

[Jeanne]

But the question was premised on the assumption that her ward sisters and others in the ward and stake level would ostracized her if she merely talked with them about her issues.

yeah..but hey..I figure that if way over 70%n of the women weren't interested in holding the priesthood...most of KK's RS sisters may have felt the same way and shown it..

[DonBradley]

Avatar,

 

So, in your experience, people in church meetings are welcoming of comments that express doubts or disagreement with church policies, and welcoming of people who make them?

 

My observation would be quite different. I think that we, as an LDS culture, are much less tolerant than the church as an institution is. People who raise questions or critiques are most often dismissed as being on the high road to apostasy, and it's often seen as best to avoid them, so they won't be a bad influence on you.

 

Don

Edited May 23, 2015 by DonBradley