John Dehlin on the Immorality of Mormonism!

[_fetchface]

To me, what is immoral is the negligence that the LDS leadership shows in understanding its flock, and the resulting pain that is caused by that negligence.

I don't think they are doing it on purpose, but it doesn't excuse the harm either. They can and should be expected to do better, just like a commercial business should be expected to proactively take a look around and make sure their premises are free of injury hazards. The church leadership should be proactively looking to reduce or not cause spiritual/emotional harm to its membership. It doesn't do a very good job of this and this constitutes a moral failing.

They are too busy patting each other on the back for being the one true church to be open to proactively evaluating and reducing the harm they cause.

[_Kishkumen]

From [Dean Robbers]:" Realistically, people create social institutions and social institutions govern people's choices and realistically, the packaged life deal a person gets out of Mormonism isn't that bad compared to other packages out there. There are also other tight-knit communities where shunning happens in principle or practice to the same degree as Mormonism or worse. "

Is it ever "right" for an organization,religion, government, cult, tribe, nation,state, city,town or even a family to "force" (big F or little f) a life package deal on a person? The RCC tried it on me and others teaching that the life package deal was what God wanted for me or do to me. For me, rebellion/denouncement/breakaway and freedom was much much easier it seems than one "caught " in the Mormon life package deal scenario. On a much smaller level but still important, my friends who went to West Point because of granddad/dad/uncle/brother, often found later that the military life package deal was not them. Often it took courage to opt out.
maybe john is saying that when a life package deal becomes /is coercive there is something not right(maybe not immoral) about if from a denial of a person's inalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. finally is relativism ( life deal A is certainly a hellavu lot better than life deal B) applicable here?

I can't take credit for the sage words of Dean Robbers, but I will say that we are all handed a certain package at birth in the form of our parents, our culture, our society, our wealth, our DNA, etc. We make the best of our situation, for the most part. Some people shift radically far from this package in certain respects during their lives, but it is difficult if not impossible to escape entirely. What we do with our package determines who we are as moral actors, and often we will find the we cannot, for one reason or another, do what may seem ideal from one perspective because of the totality of considerations. I am in the midst of struggles right now that illustrate these problems very well to me. It is one thing to strive to be a moral individual as an individual, and then there are other considerations when operating as a member of a group.

[_Kishkumen]

To me, what is immoral is the negligence that the LDS leadership shows in understanding its flock, and the resulting pain that is caused by that negligence.

I don't think they are doing it on purpose, but it doesn't excuse the harm either. They can and should be expected to do better, just like a commercial business should be expected to proactively take a look around and make sure their premises are free of injury hazards. The church leadership should be proactively looking to reduce or not cause spiritual/emotional harm to its membership. It doesn't do a very good job of this and this constitutes a moral failing.

They are too busy patting each other on the back for being the one true church to be open to proactively evaluating and reducing the harm they cause.

It is a very top-down organization to be sure. That is not conducive to understanding the flock. They will have to figure this one out if they don't want to continue to hemorrhage members.

[_Equality]

Also John Dehlin:

"The hymns rock!"

So, you know, maybe consider the source.

[_honorentheos]

Hi Kish,

I appreciate that you have a soft place in your heart for the Church, and an intolerance for John Dehlin. Knowing your dislike of Fox News, it was a bit of a cheap shot. But illustrative, too.

Fox News is kewl, then? ;)

I know, right?

So, no. Fox News is not “kewl.” Why? Because the People of the United States of America own the airwaves

Cable, brother. Cable.

...and news ideally is there to inform the electorate as it votes on important issues and candidates.

Ideally. True.

These (churches and news organizations) are different kinds of organizations that fill different functions in our society. A church does not serve the same public interests in the nation that a news organization does.

Yeah. Churches are tax exempt charities in the United States. Fox News is a for-profit cable news organization. Both "ideally" would operate in the interest of the public good. But of the two, one of them is using taxpayer dollars to fund their activities and therefore should be more beholden to "ideals" than the other. in my opinion. Both should do significantly better than they do. So, whether or not you want to accept that Church is doing the membership wrong by playing gatekeeper with information, they are. They're wrong. It's not morally good or neutral when they do so.

The leadership of the Church is immoral when they hide facts from the membership. Do they do other things that are good? Sure. We're all a mixed bag like that. But the instance in question doesn't fall on the neutral or moral side of the line.

[_Xenophon]

The leadership of the Church is immoral when they hide facts from the membership. Do they do other things that are good? Sure. We're all a mixed bag like that. But the instance in question doesn't fall on the neutral or moral side of the line.

To expand further on this point. I'd think I'd be more willing to grant the CoJCoLDS and its leadership a ruling of neutrality if they had merely declined to actively share information that they found damaging to the mission of the church. However, particularly in reference to the first vision narrative, they have spent a considerable amount of effort to conceal and bury material fact. I'm not sure how you could look at any organization's actions of attempting to sweep evidence under the rug as "neutral".

[_Rosebud]

The leadership of the Church is immoral when they hide facts from the membership. Do they do other things that are good? Sure. We're all a mixed bag like that. But the instance in question doesn't fall on the neutral or moral side of the line.

To expand further on this point. I'd think I'd be more willing to grant the CoJCoLDS and its leadership a ruling of neutrality if they had merely declined to actively share information that they found damaging to the mission of the church. However, particularly in reference to the first vision narrative, they have spent a considerable amount of effort to conceal and bury material fact. I'm not sure how you could look at any organization's actions of attempting to sweep evidence under the rug as "neutral".

I agree that it is wrong to sweep material information under the rug.

“Immorality” occurs when one is knowingly and intentionally harming another person for one’s own gain.

It is immoral to sweep people under the rug for one’s own gain. People are alive and it is terrifying to be swept under a rug. It’s especially terrifying when the person doing the sweeping is simultaneously sweeping associated information under the rug.

[_Stem]

I mean, do you have examples where you make decisions for people at a level comparable to the church?

well that's the rub. Earlier someone (could've been me) brought up the first vision example. When leaders fail to mention accounts not in line with the official account, they don't think there is something in those other accounts that are really problematic. They think they simply aren't as good or useful. I mean, giving them the benefit of the doubt. So when they talk about it or teach about it, they aren't thinking anything but what they are saying is really true. In their minds their job is not and has never been about telling the whole story and letting people decide between choices. In their mind and really how they have defined it, they are telling people what they think is true and asking them to follow along or feel inspired to agree.

Yes, we could find immorality in many common systems easily. But the point of the OP quote is the level of control crafted by the Mormon narrative for those who convert to it or are born into it. The existence of similarly-controlling systems doesn't change the immortal nature of the system.

The system could be defined as immoral but it doesn't necessarily mean the leaders of it are being immoral in their definition of the true historical narrative.

[_Meadowchik]

well that's the rub. Earlier someone (could've been me) brought up the first vision example. When leaders fail to mention accounts not in line with the official account, they don't think there is something in those other accounts that are really problematic. They think they simply aren't as good or useful. I mean, giving them the benefit of the doubt. So when they talk about it or teach about it, they aren't thinking anything but what they are saying is really true. In their minds their job is not and has never been about telling the whole story and letting people decide between choices. In their mind and really how they have defined it, they are telling people what they think is true and asking them to follow along or feel inspired to agree.

So in your experience, when do you make decisions about other peoples' lives which are comparable to the pre-fabricated decisions of the LDS narrative, thoughts about life's meaning, who to trust, how to live: who to marry, what to eat and drink, what to wear, what to say...?

The system could be defined as immoral but it doesn't necessarily mean the leaders of it are being immoral in their definition of the true historical narrative.

I am much less concerned with blaming leaders than with evaluating the system itself.

[_fetchface]

Well, if it were morally wrong in Mormon theology for the leadership to withhold material information, we presumably wouldn't see God modeling this behavior in D&C 19 where God admits to giving people false impressions in order to get them to go along with the program.

The leaders are just modelling Godly behavior when they withhold material information that their followers would use to make informed major life decisions.