TODAY I DIRECT MY THOUGHTS primarily towards the men who hold the LDS priesthood because two recent events have garnered my attention, in part for the way each involves decisions made by LDS men. The first is the child sex abuse civil lawsuit against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which was just dismissed by an Arizona judge, and the second is the sudden ending of a San Francisco Bay Area tradition that had Relief Society (RS) presidents sitting beside bishoprics during Sacrament meetings. The decisions I’d like to focus on are not those made by the men considered to have high authority in the Church (or their attorneys), but the decisions of the local leaders to obey them, even in situations where they know obeying them is not only wrong but could bring harm to others.
Continue reading “LDS Men, No More Passes for Your Wrong-headed Obedience”Category: ecclesiastical abuse
On Elder Holland, the BYU Speech, and Error
ON THE SAME DAY THAT BYU announced the creation of an Office of Belonging, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland took the pulpit at BYU’s annual conference for faculty and staff and delivered an address in which he takes imprudent aim at gay students, student allies, and allies on the staff and faculty. He gaslights those present who have embraced the Church’s occasionally kinder, softer rhetoric on homosexuality and inclusion, accuses them of disloyalty to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and blames them (and BYU students within the LGBTQIA and ally community) for divisions in the Church. The new Office of Belonging would do well to build moving sidewalks throughout the campus to facilitate transporting the alienated employees and students from wherever they’re found directly to it’s door. After this talk, it’s going to take some hard labor to convince queer students they belong at BYU (or in the Church for that matter) or allies that there isn’t a target on their backs.
To recap in brief, Elder Holland made homosexuals (particularly in gay marriages) out to be enemies of the Church. He called members to figuratively bear muskets against those who don’t see gay marriage as a disruptor of the plan of salvation. He blatantly misrepresented the facts surrounding Matt Easton’s 2019 valedictorian address, accusing the graduating senior of “commandeering” the pulpit to come out when he had received university approval for every word he said. Thick was the indirect accusation that Easton’s coming out was an attack on Church doctrine. It wasn’t a good look for an apostle.
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Energy Healing and the Update of the LDS General Handbook
Someday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will have to recognize how eager many of its women are to access all the spiritual gifts delineated in scripture and, thereby, realize their full spiritual potential. We saw this hunger most clearly during the apex of the Ordain Women movement, which was often unfairly labeled a misguided group of sisters who without the humility to understand their role as servants to and under the priesthood. What the Church does recognize, however, is its ability to deny women access to any spiritual gift it likes. All it takes is a few lines inserted into the Church Handbook of Instructions. This time, the power of official disdain is aimed at a much less vocal, seemingly less organized, set of LDS women–our energy healers.
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The Indecency of Female Confession to Male Church Authority
Some faces I can’t forget, like the girl from my freshman ward at BYU who habitually confessed her sins to me after she confessed them to our bishop. I barely knew her. She was my age with piercing blue eyes and, when she spoke, her voice sounded as southern as any I’d ever heard. The first time she asked to speak to me privately, her demeanor revealed I shouldn’t decline. I soon found myself sitting outside on a bench with her as she sobbed a confession of sexual indiscretion. My hand reached for hers, and I wondered why she had come to me.
Over the next months, she and I met several times, always at her request and usually soon after she’d interviewed with our bishop. The sins she confessed to him—and then to me—were typical sexual sins for single, LDS people our age: masturbation and “allowing” a boyfriend to grind himself, fully clothed, against her until he climaxed. Fearing I’d misunderstand, she stated emphatically that she remained a virgin. Continue reading “The Indecency of Female Confession to Male Church Authority”
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On the Excommunication of Bill Reel, the Heterodox Testimony, and the Lessons of Alma
Another stoning has occurred in this week’s excommunication of Bill Reel, the creator of the Mormon Discussions podcast. The violence of his excommunication has me in mourning, not half so much because he’s lost something as because the Church I love has forfeited something—someone—of value. Brother Reel is a modern-day Mormon enigma, a human symbol of a Church in turmoil, and the action of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which will soon have the approval of the First Presidency) is evidence of its dysfunction. Continue reading “On the Excommunication of Bill Reel, the Heterodox Testimony, and the Lessons of Alma”
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The Bishop, the Mission President, and the Sexual Predator…Now What?
It sounds like the lead-in to a bad joke, but the reality is, Joseph Bishop, a former LDS bishop and repeat mission president, is also a sexual predator. In the recent MormonLeaks audio release, a former female missionary confronts Joseph Bishop, her MTC Mission President in the 1980’s, about his attempted rape of her in the basement of the MTC, and then levels additional accusations of sexually predatory behavior with other women, including another young female missionary. He withholds confession of the attempted rape (he just doesn’t remember that pesky detail; it was so long ago), but aligns himself with adulterous husbands and accepts the title “sexual predator” without denial. To make matters worse, priesthood leaders up the chain of command—specifically Carlos E. Asay (deceased) and Robert E. Wells (emeritus)—took no disciplinary action against him. In fact, they allowed him to remain in his positions of authority and did not prevent him receiving other assignments in which he had private, intimate contact with vulnerable women. Needless to say, people are talking. Screaming. There is justifiable, warranted outrage. But the one thing that I have not heard anyone say is “I don’t believe it. This could never happen.” Continue reading “The Bishop, the Mission President, and the Sexual Predator…Now What?”
Life Outside The Book of Mormon Belt 