Saturday, February 6, 2010

I get email.

An interesting message was waiting in my inbox this morning. A reader seems to think I'm too soft on the Mormon church. I would reply privately, but the "from" name was "No One" and the address was @nospammail.com. So, I'm responding on the blog. The message seems to be in response to my letter to Mr. Bishop. Here it is:
"by the Book" - the problem with the Mormon book is it changes as the wind blows and the higher ups in the Church try to cover up the old "God given" story so that people don't see a continuous revision of the books, teachings, policies and everything - all to keep themselves in power and keep the serfs from asking too many hard questions.

And I will disagree with "I do not know you and you yourself have not done anything to me" all those at the top of the pyramid do damage to all those forced to keep the LDS church going without the full, transparent knowledge of what those at the top know.

Take even the simple and common case of the stories (many would say outright lies) about what Missions do and what people do while on their missions compared with the truth and the understanding that people have when they return - there is no "helping the poor", or whatever stories you have heard - there is continuous high pressure sales tactics and cruel, brainwashing and oppressive conditions that the young "elders" endure during that time.  The people at the top know this and they also perpetuate the lies about what happens - why? They also set up social, physical and legal barriers to people bailing out of their missions early - taking their passports, no admission to BYU, etc. in order to prevent them from coming home early before being throughly brainwashed and telling others the truth about what goes on.
Alright. First of all, I'm puzzled by your efforts to ensure anonymity. It's not as though you're saying anything I haven't heard before, although I do disagree on several of your points.

(1) "by the Book." You capitalized "Book." I did not. I was not referring the the Book of Mormon specifically when I said that my mother was "by the book." I only meant that she has a tendency to accept pretty much anything Church leaders put out at face value, because--in her view--the Church hierarchy is led by God, and God would not allow them to lead Church members astray. I am well aware of all the revisions to the various editions of the Book of Mormon, and of the efforts of Church leadership to minimize and rationalize the reasons for all these changes ("we were just cleaning up the punctuation," etc.).

(2)You paint the Church as a malicious entity. I honestly don't think that it is malicious in its intent. Is it harmful, destructive, unhealthily authoritative? Absolutely. While I'm sure that the Church is not immune to its share of corrupt cronies in places of power, I truly believe that most of them are sincerely trying to do what they think is right. They really believe what they say they believe, that they are the One and Only Way to get to heaven, and therefore Whatever Means Necessary to help (make) a fellow human toe the line, are justified. They think they're doing a good thing by covering over the less than pleasant parts of Church history, or trying to pretend that they didn't really mean such and such crazy doctrine. (We wouldn't want anyone to lose their faith, because then they'd be damned, so let's not tell them anything that might give them cause to doubt.)

I honestly think that the bishop and his two counselors who met together and decided that I must be excommunicated loved me (in the best way that they could understand loving me), and that they had my best interests at heart. I don't believe that they wanted to take away my church membership; they felt that they had to, for my own good. I imagine that it was a difficult and painful decision for them to make, but they were victims of their beliefs as much as I was, and for that reason, I genuinely pity them.

Mr. Bishop who got blasted this week is victim to that same belief system. I've no doubt that he's acted harmfully toward some over whom he was given stewardship, but I very much doubt that he ever intended harm.

(3) Missions. I don't know what you think I thought about missions, but I never once had the impression that "helping the poor" was ever the main focus of the Church's missionary effort. Sure, missionaries might do a service project here and there, but I've always known that they're primary goal is winning converts.

You're right about the hard sales tactics. I got mixed up with a network marketing company when I was 20, and remember thinking, "Wow, this is a lot like church!" (Unfortunately, at the time, instead of reading that as a red flag about the Church, I read it as a gold star for the network marketing company.)

I've always understood a mission to be a grueling and demanding experience, and I've always been aware of the stigma about coming home early. As for the brainwashing and oppression you describe, I'm sure that's all done out of the same "love" (see above on Whatever Means Necessary) as everything else the Church does. I did not serve a mission myself, though, so I'd be very interested to hear from those of my readers who did.

Bottom line, most Mormons are not mean, bad people. That includes most Mormon higher ups. They are doing the best they can with what they think they know. I am by no means defending Mormon beliefs or the Church as an institution, but I do not vilify those propagating abuse, because most of the higher ups are trapped in the same mind control as most of the lower downs.

I've got no problem with a person who wants to express an opinion, but next time have the guts to leave a name.

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5 comments:

  1. But that's how religions evolve. The internal mind set or mind control gets worse and worse over time. The higher ups and lower downs in any church mentally try to compensate for their religions evolution by creating new ideas. And we all know where idiologies lead to, right? Religions eventually get out of hand and what once started as a kindly religion evolves into something of hatred and killing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with "X". Also you can respond anyway you want to. Too soft to some is too hard to others. If dude wants to be the angry militant type and you do not, then good for you.

    Signed Kriss (real name)

    ReplyDelete
  3. First time here. I plan on listening to the recent NDSU presentation. I missed that one.

    Xuxana, I think there are situations that would support your exceedingly generalized generalization but as a historical narrative of religion in general? Well, I remain far from convinced. You pontificate well, but where are the supporting arguments??

    Kriss, you are certainly correct that what is harsh for one will be soft for another. That is a constant human dilemma.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Okay, I've been on a mission. The indoctrination happens in the MTC, but it's not at all cruel, or even brainwashing. It's more like pumping everyone up with missionary-adrenaline. Just a constant stream of motivation about how awesome we all are and what awesome things we'll all accomplish with our awesome faith. It's a lot more like an elongated sports team pep talk.

    Out in the field the indoctrination (hype) machine does not have nearly as much power. It wears off pretty quickly when you find yourself spending your days primarily annoying people. It really is a sales job, and some elders are just better at sales than others. You get a weekly pep talk, a bigger monthly pep talk, and a less frequent mission-wide conference. Some missionaries don't like being salesmen, and so they obviously experience depression, even though they fully believe that what they're doing is important. It's just difficult to realize that not only do you suck at an eternally-important job, but you also hate it. If your mission was like mine, then there will be a big political aspect to it, as politician elders (the kind that fake like they care about you) jockey for positions as zone leaders, APs, and to get areas on the beach.

    Regardless of all this, there are a lot of good things about a mission as long as you really believe in it. My mission benefited me in a lot of ways. The person who wrote you the email does not sound like he or she has been on a mission. Brainwashing is absolutely not the goal, and even if it was, they really don't do a good job of it. You are much too exposed to the real world while on a mission. You get to see so much that even self-proclaimed open-minded types have never considered. No indeed, if missions were supposed to be about brainwashing, they really screwed that plan up real bad. It's an eye-opening, maturing experience. I believe that the mission is one of the best things the LDS church has going for it.

    The indoctrination that happens is just to keep people in line while they're experiencing so many new things out there. Most of it is just automatic team-rivalry. The more you fight angrily against LDS people, the more they will be the martyrs fighting for Team Jesus. It's counterproductive. This is natural human behavior, orthogonal to religion.

    They also set up social, physical and legal barriers to people bailing out of their missions early - taking their passports, no admission to BYU, etc. in order to prevent them from coming home early before being throughly brainwashed and telling others the truth about what goes on.

    That is just fear-laden conspiratorial bullshit.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Okay, I've been on a mission. The indoctrination happens in the MTC, but it's not at all cruel, or even brainwashing. It's more like pumping everyone up with missionary-adrenaline. Just a constant stream of motivation about how awesome we all are and what awesome things we'll all accomplish with our awesome faith. It's a lot more like an elongated sports team pep talk.

    Out in the field the indoctrination (hype) machine does not have nearly as much power. It wears off pretty quickly when you find yourself spending your days primarily annoying people. It really is a sales job, and some elders are just better at sales than others. You get a weekly pep talk, a bigger monthly pep talk, and a less frequent mission-wide conference. Some missionaries don't like being salesmen, and so they obviously experience depression, even though they fully believe that what they're doing is important. It's just difficult to realize that not only do you suck at an eternally-important job, but you also hate it. If your mission was like mine, then there will be a big political aspect to it, as politician elders (the kind that fake like they care about you) jockey for positions as zone leaders, APs, and to get areas on the beach.

    Regardless of all this, there are a lot of good things about a mission as long as you really believe in it. My mission benefited me in a lot of ways. The person who wrote you the email does not sound like he or she has been on a mission. Brainwashing is absolutely not the goal, and even if it was, they really don't do a good job of it. You are much too exposed to the real world while on a mission. You get to see so much that even self-proclaimed open-minded types have never considered. No indeed, if missions were supposed to be about brainwashing, they really screwed that plan up real bad. It's an eye-opening, maturing experience. I believe that the mission is one of the best things the LDS church has going for it.

    The indoctrination that happens is just to keep people in line while they're experiencing so many new things out there. Most of it is just automatic team-rivalry. The more you fight angrily against LDS people, the more they will be the martyrs fighting for Team Jesus. It's counterproductive. This is natural human behavior, orthogonal to religion.

    They also set up social, physical and legal barriers to people bailing out of their missions early - taking their passports, no admission to BYU, etc. in order to prevent them from coming home early before being throughly brainwashed and telling others the truth about what goes on.

    That is just fear-laden conspiratorial bullshit.

    ReplyDelete

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