Right in the head

As in the case of acceptance toward homosexuality, Mormons are coming around when it comes to mental illness. Once upon a time illnesses such as depression were downplayed and sufferers were expected to find comfort and healing in Jesus. Now we have an apostle speaking more openly about severe depression, but his advice to seek out qualified professionals only comes after his advice to:

"Never, ever doubt that ['God’s love is there for you'], and never harden your heart. Faithfully pursue the time-tested devotional practices that bring the Spirit of the Lord into your life. Seek the counsel of those who hold keys for your spiritual well-being. Ask for and cherish priesthood blessings. Take the sacrament every week, and hold fast to the perfecting promises of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Believe in miracles."

But even then, seeking professional help is warrented only "[i]f things continue to be debilitating".

Alright, so the Church is still way behind the curve on this one. It almost makes you wonder, has the Church ever been ahead of the times?

THAT'S GAY!

The Church institutionally excludes people simply because they're attracted to people of the same sex. That's messed up. These days we know that homosexuality is not a choice. We also know that homosexuals are not a cohesive, organized block with an agenda to corrupt and morally destroy our children. The Church's homophobia is misguided and wrong, but what's worse is the Church's political involvement in curbing the civil rights of homosexuals. These facts should make us all seriously doubt.

When did Jesus condemn homosexuals? When did Jesus try to influence local politics to stop people from making their own life choices?

Fortunately many Mormons who are close to homosexual individuals show a little more humanity and understanding.

Mormons are changing, will the Church keep up with them?

Denying Mother Africa's children

Hey, this isn't even a fair doubt! Mormon's haven't excluded people of African decent for more than three decades! This issue is totally behind us. Gordon said so.

So why bring this up at all? Lord knows I was never really all that bothered by the ban as a believing member. Aaronic Priesthood leaders would bring it up from time to time or a mission companion might ask me what I thought of it and sadly my thoughts were usually "What's the big deal? If that's how God wanted things we shouldn't have a problem with it." And obviously that's how God wanted things, otherwise he would have told Church leaders to switch things up.

So why bring this up? Are people trying to suggest Mormons are racist? We're not racist.

Early leaders of the Church were a little bit racist maybe.

"In 1852, President Brigham Young publicly announced that men of black African descent could no longer be ordained to the priesthood, though thereafter blacks continued to join the Church through baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Following the death of Brigham Young, subsequent Church presidents restricted blacks from receiving the temple endowment or being married in the temple. Over time, Church leaders and members advanced many theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions. None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church."

Now they're dead and the "many theories" denied. There's nothing left in the Church that can be accused of being racist. Except for maybe The Book of Mormon.

But maybe all the skin color changing in The Book of Mormon was just metaphorical and not literal. Or maybe the Book of Mormon prophets were just racist themselves. We can't throw the baby out with the bathwater here. The Book of Mormon is amazing! And hopefully not racist enough to disavow.

Well there's also the Book of Abraham that mentions the seed of Cain being kept apart because they were black, and we all know that Abraham lived way before either Brigham Young or the Book of Mormon prophets. How did God get so many racist prophets? What if it's not the prophets, what if it's God who is racist? He is the inventor of race, after all. What if all this racism is more of a product of Joseph Smith? I mean, he's the one who translated The Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham. Maybe Joseph taught Brigham Young to be a horrible racist. Could he be responsible for such the huge racist mess?

Who knows? We'll just have to take this one on faith, I guess.

I don't always doubt

They judge me, they judge me not, they judge me, they judge me not...

Mormons teach each other not to judge. Dieter's recent Conference talk is proof.

The avalanche of "Stop it" memes that followed bore witness to the fact that Dieter had won the People's Choice Award for Best Conference Talk.

It's a good message. I think Jesus even said something similar. It's hard to argue with a good message that comes from Jesus. I'm just not sure Dieter captured the essence of Mormon judging. The judgment he's speaking of refers to "hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm", there is so much more to Mormon judging than that.

In my experience, Mormon judgment is almost entirely concerned with righteousness and worthiness, and hides behind the façade of helping others. Because "judging" carries such a negative connotation, Mormons prefer to approach the issue in the key of "discernment". We have to discern between Good and Evil, and whether or not something is worthy or unworthy, or clean and unclean all the time. Worthy is good. Unworthy is bad, and sometimes evil. If we can't tell what's good, how will we know what's worthy of us? If we can't tell what's evil, how can we reasonably seek after good things? If we can't tell what's unclean, how will we stay clean before God? We have to discern who's worthy to participate in the sacred rites of baptism, sacrament, and temple work. We have to discern who stands in need of fellowship. We have a lot of discerning to do and that requires a lot of judging.

We're always looking for signs of doubt, weak faith, idleness in upholding the Gospel and magnifying callings, heresy, and apostasy. These signs show up everywhere and we have to be ever observant. It could be a can of Coke. It could be chronic tardiness to Sacrament Meeting. It could be a reluctance to bless the sacrament. It could be a colored shirt or facial hair. It could be failure to bring your own scriptures to church. It could be watching sports on Sunday. It could be a low cut dress or a questionably short skirt. It could be wearing flip flops to church. It could be reluctance to accept a calling or speak in sacrament. It could be a bumper sticker endorsing a Democrat. It could be poorly behaved children or children who's hair has not been tidied up. It could be a mild swear word. It could be the slightest disagreement with something that was said in General Conference. It could be the mentioning of an inappropriate movie. It could be a slanderous remark against the Founding Fathers. It could be a look of boredom in class. It could be not singing along with the hymns. It could be never raising your hand in Sunday School. It could be an uncorrelated comment in class. It could be your gait and composure. It could be your lack of a smile. It could be your avoidance of someone in the ward, especially authority figures. It could be so many different things, so we exercise vigilance along with our discernment.

Just know that we can and will discern you. Be sure of that. We'll scrutinize your every word and your every move. We'll figure you out. We'll categorize you flawlessly. We'll put you in your place.

I don't know that we deny that

When, in the years following the King Follet Discourse, has eternal progression not been a central tenant of Mormonism, besides when Hinckley said it wasn't (or might not be) back in 1997? I know, I know, this topic has been run into the ground, but, hey, it's a classic moment of doubting a prophet and Mormon doctrine. I think everyone was taken aback when they read the interview.

I think it's a wonderful example of Hassan's distinction between insider and outsider doctrines. No casting pearls before swine. No milk before meat. No freaking out Christian America before getting them to respect our beliefs a bit.

Isn't that a little dishonest? Isn't it a little disconcerting to be lead by men who are okay with deception and denial? How do we feel about justifying that behavior for the sake of maintaining faith in those leaders?

Promoting faith

"As the Information Age is now upon us, we feel with all of this information out there, we owe it, particularly to the rising generation, to provide good, reliable information." That's from Steven Snow, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy (just below the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles) and spokesman for the Church on this particular occasion, saying that if it weren't for the Internet the Church would happily keep ugly information about the Church away from its members, especially the youth. It's time to start telling the whole story. Or at least enough of it to keep doubters doubting their doubts and not their faith.

"We have understandably in the past not spent a lot of time worrying about these issues because our mission is to promote faith in the Lord Jesus Christ," says Snow. Is it really that understandable, Steve? I'm not sure I personally understand it. I think my understanding for why the Church has been leaving all the juicy parts of it's history locked up in the First Presidency vault leans more in the direction of "holy shit, the leaders of the Church KNOW this whole thing's a giant clusterfuck of half-truths and total lies and they don't want to blow their cover!"

Members who don't want to consider the possibility that the Church has - since its inception - dealt dishonestly with its members and the world might come up with an accusatory comment like the following:

"You've seriously been to church every Sunday your whole life and never knew about this stuff? Come on! That doesn't make sense! The Church published an article back before you were born that mentions some of this in a footnote, AND an apostle brought it up in a stake conference a couple of decades ago. None of this should be a surprise!"

That makes perfect sense, right? We should all be responsible for finding and reading every Church publication and devoting all contents to memory, shouldn't we? What? Who cares if it's all in English? Members in non-English-speaking parts of the world should be learning English from the missionaries anyway! What? I don't care if they don't have constant access to and unlimited time to spend on the Internet! It's members' fault that they don't know this stuff! It's their fault they don't have a good enough understanding of the Gospel! It's their fault their testimonies can't handle a couple of bumps in the road!

Let's turn to Steven Hassan for some interesting considerations of what the Church has been up to. He points out that an organization is guilty of using deception when it (a) deliberately holds back information [that isn't "faith promoting"], (b) distorts the information to make it acceptable [as in the case of Joseph Smith practicing "magic"], or (c) lies outright [like claiming polygamy started in the early 1840s]. But that's only the beginning of the kinds of deception Hassan lists. When information originating from outside the organization is minimized or discouraged (as it is in the Church), when there are distinctions between insider and outsider doctrines [e.g. the temple] and leaders who control all the information are the ones deciding "who 'needs to know' what" (as has been and still is the case with the Church), and when the organization floods its members with propaganda (Ensign, Liahona, New Era, The Friend, Deseret News, I Am a Mormon, Church movies, etc.) you just might be in a cult.

I know Mormons hate being compared to a cult. They absolutely hate it. Mormons don't have to get permission from their bishops to make decisions about things like how to spend their money and where/if to send their kids to school. They can read and watch whatever they want without reporting it to their higher ups. Mormons are free to do what they want. And, no, the stake president isn't demanding members give up their daughters for polygamous marriages! How can anyone dare compare Mormonism to a cult?

We're not a cult! We're just okay wearing Church-prescribed blinders and having the wool pulled over our eyes. That's all.