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?

Gone rogue

It's been said (by a prophet and repeated frequently by others) that God will not let his people be lead astray. You can find this in LDS scripture and in the Church's general teachings about the nature of the relationship between God and his prophets.

The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty.

Is this why Joseph Smith was murdered at 44? Was the mob at Carthage somehow sent by God to remove his delusional and fallen prophet? Was Brigham wrong to take up the bizarre cause of polygamy? What if we can't trust the Brighamite branch of Mormonism at all?

If we can't trust Brigham and his followers than we can't trust what Wilford said either, and I totally believe what Wilford said, ergo everything must be fine. Joseph must have been a holy son of a gun and Brigham must have been right to fight for polygamy. The Church is true! Doubt no longer!

It's not hero worship, Fiona!

It seems Henry had some words for the Fiona Givens this past Sunday.

Our white knights serving and protecting.

Don’t take lightly the feeling you get of love for the prophet of God. Wherever I go in the Church, whoever the prophet is at the time, members will ask, “When you get back to Church headquarters, will you please tell the prophet how much we love him?” That is far more than hero worship or the feelings we sometimes have of admiring heroic figures. It is a gift from God.

I don't understand what Henry's saying here. I don't. What I think is happening hear is Henry's trying to correct the Church's best selling authors Terryl and Fiona Givens. He doesn't explain at all how he understands hero worship, what he thinks it means, what examples of it might be, whether or not it has a place in the LDS Church, etc., but, as you may know, Fiona is very concerned about the way Mormons revere their leaders. It doesn't seem Henry has any idea what she means by the term "hero worship". But who cares? Since when did prophets and apostles have to understand the lowly member? All they have to understand are the ways of God and all we have to understand is that love for the them is a gift from God (probably because the vast majority of Church members have never met them and never heard them speak outside of the context of the Church and they have no basis for their affection of these leaders), which must be good because God only gives really awesome gifts. 

Illusions of invulnerability

One problem Mormons face on a regular basis (at least every 6 months) has to do with contemptible instructions handed down from prophets and apostles. What are we to do when our dear leaders screw up or say something awful? Our dear leader Dallin offers this bit of wisdom: 

 But no faithful member should even arrive at the point of criticizing leaders because once the prophet speaks the debate is over. I dare say that most members of the LDS Church never cross the line. Any confusion or frustration caused by the things they hear from our prophets, seers and revelators is put on the back burner, swept under the rug, put on the shelf, etc. In general Mormons readily conform to the thoughts and adopt the talking points laid out to them in General Conference and elsewhere.

This behavior fits nicely into the psycho-social phenomenon known as groupthink. This is where individuals of a given group will defer to leaders to make important decisions regardless of a given leaders competence or of any dissenting opinion an individual might have. Essentially, rational decision-making suffers for the sake of maintaining the status quo.

Irving Janis, the man known for first describing groupthink, created a list of symptoms we can check Mormonism up against. In the category of "Overestimations of the group — its power and morality" we have the first symptom: "illusions of invulnerability create excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking". When I see this I think of the Joseph Smith quote about "no unhallowed hand" being about to stop the Church.

I also think of the LDS Church's quest to dominate the entire world and prepare it for Jesus' millennial rule. How's that for excessive optimism? For a religious tribe that makes up a tiny fraction of the earth's population (about .2% if we're being as generous as we possibly can be) to believe it will save the world and rule it too is nothing short of excessively optimistic.

When it comes to encouraging risk taking the LDS Church is a little hit and miss. In the yes category we have Church teachings on tithing. Members are to take serious financial risks for the sake of paying tithing. On the other hand members are supposed to play it safe by avoiding debt and having food storage on hand. Then again avoiding debt and having food storage only feed the Mormon believe of being invulnerable.