Moving up the Mormon ladder - what to expect

During a recent conversation with a current LDS bishop I mentioned how much I disliked the MTC as a young missionary. I explained how difficult it was for me to be surrounded by the kinds of impatient and intolerant kids that make up the missionary force. I heard horribly sexist conversations on a regular basis, endless trash talking of other religions, racist jokes and attitudes, bragging about idiotic things, macho confrontations, materialistic life goals, egotistical ambitions to climb the missionary leadership ladder, etc. It was disheartening for me, a slightly less sexist, less racist, less materialistic, less boastful, but still wholly argumentative and egotistical missionary.

The bishop's response to my complaint came without hesitation: THAT'S WHAT YOU FIND AT EVERY LEVEL. He explained that with every higher position attained the same horrible attitudes can be found and at no point are you likely to reach a level of LDS Church leadership where disgusting and horrible men have been weeded out. The idea of walking with spiritual giants as you climb the hierarchy is a myth.

In other words, the cream doesn't seem to be rising to the top... Should we be worried?

Temple prep - "Worthy to Enter"

The following text is taken from the pamphlet "Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple" (2002) and annotated by me.

Once you have some feeling for the value of temple blessings and for the sacredness of the ordinances performed in the temple, you would be hesitant to question the high standards set by the Lord for entrance into the holy temple. All the Church offers is feelings about so-called blessings and sacredness. It would really be fantastic if someone would lay it all out for us to work through. But the Church isn't doing that right now. Instead we get semi-threatening language about how we "would be hesitant to question" this whole temple thing.

You must possess a current recommend to be admitted to the temple. We know. This recommend must be signed by the bishop of your ward and the president of your stake. OK. Sounds serious... In the mission field, of course, the branch president and the mission president have responsibility for issuing temple recommends. Of course. Only those who are worthy should go to the temple. But a lot of unworthy assholes who shouldn't do too! :( Why can't the bishop and stake president sniff them out? The bishop has the responsibility of making inquiries into our personal worthiness. This interview is of great importance to you as a member of the Church, for it is an occasion to explore with an ordained servant of the Lord the pattern of your life. Ordained but untrained. Let's tell it like it is: this is an obligatory disclosure of your life to that one neighbor dude. If anything is amiss in your life, the bishop will be able to help you resolve it. Well he'll try anyway. Let's not forget that he likely has no training in counseling. Through this procedure, as you counsel with the common judge in Israel, you can declare or can be helped to establish your worthiness to enter the temple with the Lord’s approval. Bishop's approval. The Lord doesn't sign your recommend.

President N. Eldon Tanner, who served as First Counselor in the First Presidency, spoke to the general priesthood meeting about interviews. His counsel has meaning both for the Church leaders who conduct the interview and for the members who are to be interviewed. Consider carefully this counsel:

You bishops and stake presidents might approach an interview for a temple recommend something like this:

“You have come to me for a recommend to enter the temple. I have the responsibility of representing the Lord in interviewing you. What a humble approach. :S At the conclusion of the interview there is provision for me to sign your recommend; but mine is not the only important signature on your recommend. Before the recommend is valid, you must sign it yourself. Sounds tricky! :S

“When you sign your recommend, you make a commitment to the Lord that you are worthy of the privileges granted to those who hold such a recommend. When did Jesus ask us to sign a piece of paper? There are several standard questions that I will ask. … You are to respond honestly to each one.” Because you can tell? …

Now, after you have put those required questions to the applicant, you may wish to add something like this: “One who goes into the house of the Lord must be free from any unclean, unholy, impure, or unnatural practice.” Wait! What are the questions? Is this a pop quiz or can we see the questions? …

Our interviews must be conducted in love, in modesty. Try by conducting them as a friend instead of pretending you're standing in for Jesus. Ofttimes things can be corrected if you ask: “Would there be a reason you may feel uncomfortable or perhaps even dishonest to the Lord if you were to sign your own temple recommend? Dig up the guilt, brother! DIG!! You might want to start using an E-meter.

“Would you like a little time to get some very personal things in order before you sign it? Remember, the Lord knows all things and will not be mocked. YES! Scare them! Terrify them! God will smite them if they're lying! We are trying to help you. Never lie to try to obtain a call, a recommend, or a blessing from the Lord.” Excellent! Passively accuse them of lying! Very good approach.

If you approach the matter as outlined above, the member has the responsibility to interview himself. Because there's not way providing members with the questions and asking them to prayerfully consider their answers on their own would get them to answer honestly. The bishop or stake president has the right to the power of discernment. He will know whether or not there is something amiss that ought to be settled before a recommend is issued. Except when they don't (which is almost always). (“The Blessing of Church Interviews,” Ensign [November 1978]: 42–43.)

The interview for a temple recommend is conducted privately between the bishop and the Church member concerned. (Or the stake president.) Here the member is asked searching questions about his or her personal conduct, worthiness, and loyalty to the Church and its officers. Searching that members could do on their own. The bishop can butt out. The person must certify that he or she is morally clean and is keeping the Word of Wisdom, paying a full tithing, living in harmony with the teachings of the Church, and not maintaining any affiliation or sympathy with apostate groups. Whoa! You basically gave us the questions! Thank you! Can we talk a bit about these topics? Does "morally clean" include faking it until we make it? Does proof that we keep the word of wisdom involve checking how much meat we eat or a test to see if we can "walk and not faint"? Is a full tithe based on gross, net or expendable income? Does these mean we have to actively oppose gay rights? Do we have to avoid our cousins and siblings who have left the Church and always attend Sunstone and Dialog conferences? The bishop is instructed that confidentiality in handling these matters with each interviewee is of the utmost importance. And we just kind of trust them.

Acceptable answers to the bishop’s questions will ordinarily establish the worthiness of an individual to receive a temple recommend. But they don't always have the power of discernment. If an applicant is not keeping the commandments or there is something unsettled about his or her life that needs putting in order, it will be necessary for that individual to demonstrate true repentance before a temple recommend is issued. Typically that demonstration takes the form of public shaming in the form of not being able to take the sacrament on Sundays or privately in the form of paying up on tithing.

After the bishop has conducted such an interview, a member of the stake presidency likewise interviews each of us before we go to the temple. Because bishops don't do a very good job. They really should get some E-meters. If we are going for the first time, ordinarily the stake president personally conducts the interview. Because... why? Is this supposed to be comforting or is it just an arbitrary rule you thought you'd share?

Surely, when you appear to be interviewed for a temple recommend you would accept the judgment of him who is designated as the judge in Israel, who is responsible to represent the Lord in determining whether or not it is proper for you to enter this sacred place. Sure, I guess. Unless he's a total idiot or complete dick. Have you ever heard of the leadership roulette?

Direct pressure

 
When it comes to "direct pressure to conform", Mormons have an arsenal of pressures and a wide range of pressure points to work with. Members who question the Church will certainly feel it from believing family and they might get called in to talk with the bishop, who will likely send out a request that home and visiting teachers make a greater effort. Every word and every action gets evaluated constantly in order to understand one's strength of loyalty to the Work.

Nowadays every minute spend in church, every lesson-oriented visit, every Ensign article, every second of General Conference feels like direct pressure. 

Heavenly fatherliness #28 - Owning mistakes

According to popular wisdom, a good father is not afraid to own up to his mistakes.

Heavenly Father is kind of exempt from this fatherly behavior because the Dude is perfect. He makes no mistakes to own up to.

However, those who profess to speak for God are only human and are subject to making mistakes just like the rest of us. Oddly enough, they rarely, if ever, own up to them.

You might think a perfect God would ask his well-intentioned, mistake-making servants of choice to apologize from time to time.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Court of Love

Church discipline is an interesting thing. Typically it involves an offending member and the offender's bishop working things out as quietly as possible. There might be a temporary probation enacted on certain types of participation, but the idea is that the offender has time to work through the repentance process fully and arrive at a good place spiritually. The works of God and His Church are sacred and not to be defamed by those who cannot or will not respect them.

Disciplinary councils, or "courts of love" are much more serious. They typically address weightier matters that might warrant excommunication. Typically those matters have to deal with sexual indiscretion, apostasy, and occasionally the mishandling of tithes.

Coming down hard on local leaders embezzling tithing funds seems appropriate. No one should be taking monies intended to assist in the cause of Jesus and use them for personal or worldly gain. (Then again, we have no idea what the LDS Church is actually doing with the money even when it does make it past the local leadership.)

Matters of sexual indiscretion come in all shapes and sizes so it's hard to come up with any single example that can fully illustrate all of the issues at stake. I'm all for finding out who in the Church is sexually abusive, who is offending the law (as in the case of child porn), and getting the right counseling for anyone seeking to overcome hurtful sexual practices. Where courts of love become questionable lies more in the nature of the court itself. You have the offender facing off alone to a bishop, a stake president, and fifteen high counselors (all of whom are men). That's one against seventeen. Often an unknowing spouse is involved, in which case there could very well be an unpleasant surprise in store - a surprise that the spouse gets to sort out in front of eighteen people who know more about the matter than he or she does. Sexual matters are delicate and can contribute to deep embarrassment and shame. Does a wife hearing about her husband's sexual escapades for the first time deserve to hear it in front of nearly twenty men, some of them neighbors?

Potential apostates are another tricky matter. You have all kinds of unorthodox thought and practice to address from something people who think the Church has derailed to self-proclaimed prophets who are seeking followers. You also have people who run into difficult problems with what the Church claims and are asking for answers. Asking hard questions doesn't go over well in disciplinary councils. You're supposed to be humble and let the Church remold you.

I think the only reason I didn't have a problem with this in the past was because 1) I believed in keeping the Church safe from apostates and 2) I didn't know what kind of shit went down in these disciplinary councils. In my mind, anyone dragged into a court of love was going to get what they deserved! Nearly twenty inspired men can't be wrong, can they? How often do these courts turn around to blame the victim? You should have learned to be more sexually satisfying! You shouldn't have started investigating Church history! You should have doubted your doubts, not your faith!

Living on the edge

Jesus needs our money to make his church work properly. It's as simple as that. Church's don't run on dreams, my friends! So we shouldn't be surprised when our dear leaders make these kinds of demands for our obedience to the law of tithing:

"Bishop Orellana looked at the new convert and said, “If paying tithing means that you can’t pay for water or electricity, pay tithing. If paying tithing means that you can’t pay your rent, pay tithing. Even if paying tithing means that you don’t have enough money to feed your family, pay tithing. The Lord will not abandon you.” (Ensign Dec. 2012)

Sound advice, right? But the promise is clear - the Lord will be with you. We're just not sure how.

"The Lord has commanded us to pay tithing. In return, He promises to “open … the windows of heaven, and pour … out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10). His blessings, however, come in His own way and in His own time and can be spiritual or temporal." (Ensign Mar. 2013)

That's a great way of saying "Want blessing? Go fish."

If it sounds like fraud to you, or a hoax, or a scam, or a pay-to-play scheme, you're not alone. 

Blind leading the blind

Mormon stake presidents, bishops, and branch presidents, just like the vast majority of Mormon clergy, receive essentially no practical training when it comes to their very sticky counseling duties. With little more than a secret rule book, a few life lines, and good intentions, lay Mormon leadership the world over take to advising and guiding in matters they often have no experience in and no professional competency. What results are endless stories of bad advice given to members by their ecclesiastical leaders that will either make you laugh or cry or both. The material's good enough for a parody blog all its own. The joke has been made that if the Church were not true the missionaries (the Mormon clergy with perhaps the most formal training) would have ruined it years ago. The truth is that the well-intended stake presidents, bishops, and branch presidents have never needed any help destroying the lives and faith of their congregations.

Children at the bar

"Let's take a second here to talk about your vagina..."

In the Mormon world you start meeting one-on-one with the bishop at age eight when you have your baptismal interview. The bishop asks you questions to determine whether or not your ready to be baptized or not (SURPRISE! YOU ARE!). This is only the beginning of worthiness interviews, which turn into a twice-a-year event once a child turns twelve.

As a member of full faith I faithfully attended and believed in the importance of these interviews. It was awesome (and logical) that the bishop should be personally involved in every member's life and that he should act as keeper of the gate. I seemed wise to give children the opportunity to meet with the bishop without threat of suspicion. Someone who's embarrassed to make an appointment on his or her own wouldn't have to wait long before being called in for the routine check up. Let's not forget those kids who might be suffering abuses at home and who wouldn't be able to meet the bishop without arousing the aggressor's suspicion. Bishop interviews, in my mind, were a total safety net!

The reality of bishop interviews is a little different, though. Every kid hates them and fears them. They're awkward as fuck. You get a healthy dose of hardy-har-har humor from some old guy who lives in your neighborhood and who just might be your friend's dad only to segue into really obvious questions (e.g. "Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost? Do you have a testimony of the Atonement of Christ and of His role as Savior and Redeemer? Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel in these the latter days?" Duh! Who doesn't?), some kind of fuzzy, corrosively guilt-inducing questions (e.g. "Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and other meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel? Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen? Are you a full-tithe payer? Do your keep the Word of Wisdom? Is there anything in your conduct relating to members of your family that is not in harmony with the teachings of the Church?" Um... How much striving is enough striving? Does stuffing stuff under my bed and saying I cleaned my room make me dishonest? Does picking up a dime and immediately buying an Airhead mean I'm not a full tithe payer? I've neglected drinking mild drinks made from barley, is that bad? Holy shit, do we really have time for me to sit and examine every aspect of everything I've done since my last interview?), and there's that almost entirely irrelevant question ("Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?" Uh? What?)

Answering these questions is never pleasant even for the most believing of youths. They put you on the spot. They seem to doubt you. They subversively get you to doubt yourself.

Bishop interviews are notoriously unpleasant among Mormon kids, who easily see behind all the fluff questions and know the real purpose of these interviews: the bishop needs to know what you're doing with your genitals.

"Do you live the law of chastity?"

This question is almost always expanded into many, many more.

"Do you have or entertain unclean thoughts? Do you tell dirty jokes? Do you look at pornography? Do you masturbate? Do you know what that is? How often? Are you dating anyone? What's your physical relationship like? Are you ever alone in each other's bedroom? What kind of kissing do you do? Do you ever lay on top of each other? Do you touch each other's private areas? Do you engage in necking or petting? Do you know what "Levi loving" is? Do you do it? Have you had sex?"

Mormon kids hate this. Whether you're Molly, Peter, or Jack, you hate these questions. You hate the fact that anyone has the audacity to ask you these questions and yet you believe they must be asked. You hate that you feel obligated to answer the questions.

"I sometimes think about girls in bikinis... I sometimes wonder what sex is like... Sometimes when I get, um, 'excited' I, uh, don't know how to get rid of it..."

Mormon kids hate the fact that they are in a private office with a grown man with the door shut talking about their sexuality. They all hate it. AND SO SHOULD PARENTS.

How in the hell is it acceptable to send your 14-year-old daughter into a closed office with a grown man? How is it acceptable for a man, who likely has ZERO PROFESSIONAL TRAINING in these kinds of sensitive discussions, to interrogate youth and teens about the most intimate details of their lives? Do we honestly think this is God's way or that Jesus gets off on this sort of thing?

I doubt it. I think parents might want to consider limiting what the bishop can talk to their children about. I think parents might even want to be present for some interviews. I think the Church should  make it mandatory for girls to be interviewed by women and not by men. I think the Church should  definitely think about hiring professionals to discuss sex with teens and pre-teens.

Then again, I think kids shouldn't be shamed for masturbating or being curious about sex.

A bishop's blues

Here's another great response to Dieter's "doubt your doubts" talk, this time focusing more on the concept of there being room in the Church for everyone. How is a bishop to react when he learns that what he's been teaching has just been disavowed? How is he to sleep at night when he's held his congregation's standard of belief to the heights of pure fiction and disciplined members according to that standard? Former bishop and current high councilman Ganesh Cherian of New Zealand spells out some very real issues that are developing in the wake of recently revealed light and knowledge.

Libido

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