John Dehlin on the Immorality of Mormonism!

[_Stem]

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...?

I hear the point you are making, I don't think that really relates well with the narrative being told though. I don't think the leaders know and are lying. If they know, which at least some do, I think they are being sincere. There are plenty of people who get the problems with the narrative and yet still find themselves faithful to the church--leaders included. To me that suggests their suggestions and influence as it pertains to these decisions are their best sincere advice. I"m quite happy with how things have turned out so far, for me. I don't really think the leaders misled me in my decisions. I just think they are wrong in their conclusions about the Church.

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

Fair enough. Such an evaluation is precisely why I find myself on the outside. I found the system broken.

[_Meadowchik]

I hear the point you are making, I don't think that really relates well with the narrative being told though. I don't think the leaders know and are lying. If they know, which at least some do, I think they are being sincere. There are plenty of people who get the problems with the narrative and yet still find themselves faithful to the church--leaders included. To me that suggests their suggestions and influence as it pertains to these decisions are their best sincere advice. I"m quite happy with how things have turned out so far, for me. I don't really think the leaders misled me in my decisions. I just think they are wrong in their conclusions about the Church.

The quote is essentially two parts:
1) a life-absorbing high-demand religion
Based upon
2) a faulty narrative.

I would say both are deeply related, necessarily entangled. From the very beginning, the faulty narrative required high levels of control in order to secure retention.

[_cinepro]

I'm mixed on dehlin's statement. 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.

-------------------------------------
Where it gets questionable is Dehlin also has an advanced degree in psychology, right? And so he can't possibly hold the Church to it's own standards in the long run, he needs to consider it in terms of the much better ideas of men that frame social institutions, and at a certain point, it's helpful to realize that while yes, the Church is obviously false, it's also not really that far off from any other uptight institution out there, I'd say it's within a standard deviation from the norm.

Glad you said it!

Additionally, I can understand not liking the Church, but when it comes to social influence and "life direction", the Church is an inept, two-bit amateur when compared to the other societal forces that affect our lives.

For example, it's hilarious to see people complain about the Word of Wisdom and simple church teachings about coffee and such things, but then to totally ignore (or not even be aware of) the massive influence the sugar, corn, alcohol and other food industries have on our perceptions of what is healthful to eat and drink.

The Church is like a six-year-old playing chop sticks on the piano with its "God doesn't want you to drink coffee routine", while the food industries are playing you like a Beethoven sonata.

This applies to almost every aspect of life.

[_Kishkumen]

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.

Wow, honorentheos. Today I am intolerant of John Dehlin. On other days, people accuse me of being his apologist. I guess I am whatever others imagine me to be based on what they imagine my motives are. Some days I am ribbed for being soft on the church, but to others I am one of the vilest anti-Mormons to ever have darkened the earth. This is all so fascinating.

Cable, brother. Cable.

D'OH! I guess that is where I should have lamented the loss of the Fairness Doctrine. Oh well.

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.

So, first of all, I am not sure I agree with the tax exempt status of churches. My thinking on the topic under discussion has little to do with that factor, since I believe that there are much better reasons for changing the law in that regard, one of them being their appalling record of hoarding money. Now, when you get into trying to enforce standards of factual truth, well, that is where we start mucking about with freedom of speech. Unfortunately, all of these issues are intertwined, so there is unlikely to be anything done that would redress the injustices of the current system.

The problem here is that religion as we generally think of it, for better or worse, is about faith. Faith regarding what is true about things and what is of transcendent worth, etc., etc. The church's standards of what is true and worthwhile are mediated by the beliefs and practices of the organization itself. Just because you or I believe that something is factual and of utmost importance does not mean that the leaders of the Church have to agree, and their failure to agree with us is not really, I think, a moral failing.

Now I don't think an absurd difference from worldly opinion on these matters is a sustainable course for the Church, so they are doing their best to find the right position between respectable non-LDS opinion and faith. In the meantime, as they look to see how they will handle these problems, I don't account them to be immoral because they do not immediately adopt our views. I just don't think it is realistic that leaders of a giant organization who have so much impact on the lives of others will precipitously act to satisfy the views of a small group of people, even if those views have real merit.

Furthermore, I think people have to accept that a religion's story will change over time. What people of one generation find faith in is not ever going to be the last word. Emphases have shifted over time in Mormonism in response to changing needs. It is kind of an artificial thing to say that what a researcher may discover today is what the LDS Church must adopt as truth when it teaches its story of faith to its members. The failure to change the story of faith to reflect to views of historians is not necessarily a burying of the truth.

So, even though I personally do not put much stock in the story the LDS Church tells--i.e., it really does not matter to me one way or the other--I am also not sure that the Church is morally obliged to tell my version, Sandra Tanner's version, Don Bradley's version, or Richard Bushman's version. Their hesitance to do so may not simply be about "hiding the truth."

[_Stem]

The quote is essentially two parts:
1) a life-absorbing high-demand religion
Based upon
2) a faulty narrative.

I would say both are deeply related, necessarily entangled. From the very beginning, the faulty narrative required high levels of control in order to secure retention.

I've enjoyed both Cinepro's and the Reverend's latest responses. I doubt I'll make my case any cleaner. If disagreement persists, I'm happy to move on realizing we've exhausted the avenues of convincing each other.

[_Kishkumen]

Additionally, I can understand not liking the Church, but when it comes to social influence and "life direction", the Church is an inept, two-bit amateur when compared to the other societal forces that affect our lives.

For example, it's hilarious to see people complain about the Word of Wisdom and simple church teachings about coffee and such things, but then to totally ignore (or not even be aware of) the massive influence the sugar, corn, alcohol and other food industries have on our perceptions of what is healthful to eat and drink.

The Church is like a six-year-old playing chop sticks on the piano with its "God doesn't want you to drink coffee routine", while the food industries are playing you like a Beethoven sonata.

This applies to almost every aspect of life.

There is a lot to chew on in this succinct post. Yes, the Church actually has a minimal amount of influence in people's lives in comparison with the behemoth marketing industry as deployed by global corporations. It would actually be nice if more were invested by the Church in countering the harmful messages of marketing, but I am afraid of how such an initiative would be executed.

Better not to give anyone bright ideas.

Oh, and, by the way, cinepro, the link to your blog in your signature is broken.

[_fetchface]

The Church is like a six-year-old playing chop sticks on the piano with its "God doesn't want you to drink coffee routine", while the food industries are playing you like a Beethoven sonata.

This applies to almost every aspect of life.

Really? I'd say that compliance to rules like the Work of Wisdom is impressively high among Mormon. They are really good at using social pressures to get results among their followers.

The food industry convinces people to buy commodities with razor-thin profit margins. The church convinced me to hand over 10% of my gross paycheck for years. Fists full of money, much more than I paid the food industry, with much more profit in it for the church. Compare them to a giant company like Kraft Heinz and they are healthier and more secure.

The church is the real Mozart. They know where to put the social pressure to influence people to maximize their benefit. Who does it better? There may be bigger companies, but they work a lot harder and their position isn't nearly as secure as the church.

[_Meadowchik]

The Church is like a six-year-old playing chop sticks on the piano with its "God doesn't want you to drink coffee routine", while the food industries are playing you like a Beethoven sonata.

This applies to almost every aspect of life.

Really? I'd say that compliance to rules like the Work of Wisdom is impressively high among Mormon. They are really good at using social pressures to get results among their followers.

The food industry convinces people to buy commodities with razor-thin profit margins. The church convinced me to hand over 10% of my gross paycheck for years. Fists full of money, much more than I paid the food industry, with much more profit in it for the church. Compare them to a giant company like Kraft Heinz and they are healthier and more secure.

The church is the real Mozart. They know where to put the social pressure to influence people to maximize their benefit. Who does it better? There may be bigger companies, but they work a lot harder and their position isn't nearly as secure as the church.

Food industries do vary from country to country. One thing we notice when visiting the US is how unbearably sweet so much food is! However, no ideology ties an American consuming sugary foods to their eternal salvation.

In America you can find Mormon health fanatics who eat almost absolutely no processed white flour or sugar, but yet they do not drink green tea, or coffee, or even the occasional red wine for their health benefits. So what controls them more?

An obvious example is also the financial impact on women. An educated LDS woman is generally expected to raise children at home unless not possible. As a consequence, there are women who bypass secondary education or career preparation altogether, women who leave school when children are born, women who graduate but do not enter the workforce, women who do work and in Utah are paid much less than their male counterparts, arguably due to the Mormon expectations of women in Utah.

And a woman's financial autonomy has impact on her and everyone else.

[Guest]

Original quote -

"There’s this massive amount of decisions that you make, you know in a finite life, and to base that life on a narrative, when not only the narrative isn’t what it claims to be, when leaders know the narrative isn’t what it claims to be, and intentionally - for as long as they could - withheld the information that would allow people to make an informed decision about how they spend their finite time and resources –that’s profoundly immoral."

When big tobbacco does the above related to the health impacts of their products, we probably agree that is/was immoral. When big pharma hides side effects or markets their products for off label uses that expose people to more risk than they are knowingly accepting, we probably agree that's immoral. When the LDS church leverages the commitment of the membership to consecrate to the Church their times, talents and all that the Lord has blessed them with into channels that oppress others in the name of God, most of us here probably agree that is immoral.

We don't agree if we pretend that adults don't deserve to have access to information that affects them where an authority is abusing their role as gatekeeper. It shouldn't even be controversial.

ETA: There are now classic studies on the effects of people blame shifting off individuals to the umbrella institution that seem to apply here. The leadership are just victims of a system that has a cultural narrative they are powerless to affect or modify, right? The edifice that is Mormonism is to blame for whatever harms may occur but since institutions can't be moral agents, no one is making morally dubious decisions or really at fault if they themselves believer the narrative and therefore perpetuate the official version of LDS history. The whole thing is being any person's role or responsibility so blame the game not the player...

[_kairos]

I hear the point you are making, I don't think that really relates well with the narrative being told though. I don't think the leaders know and are lying. If they know, which at least some do, I think they are being sincere. There are plenty of people who get the problems with the narrative and yet still find themselves faithful to the church--leaders included. To me that suggests their suggestions and influence as it pertains to these decisions are their best sincere advice. I"m quite happy with how things have turned out so far, for me. I don't really think the leaders misled me in my decisions. I just think they are wrong in their conclusions about the Church.

The quote is essentially two parts:
1) a life-absorbing high-demand religion
Based upon
2) a faulty narrative.

IMHO you nailed it!
k

I would say both are deeply related, necessarily entangled. From the very beginning, the faulty narrative required high levels of control in order to secure retention.