The current situation with April Young Bennett, who had to choose between renewing her temple recommend and leaving up her posts on female ordination, brings up a troubling aspect of church governance: the extent to which local leaders can define apostasy. As anyone in the church can tell you, bishops and stake presidents can vary widely on a number of issues, and life in one stake can be quite different from life in another. I’m not saying that this is necessarily in and of itself a bad thing. But I do think it causes problems when it comes to particular issues, such as the way in which cases of apostasy are handled.
In theory, I can see how having local leaders handle such matters might be a good thing. They are, after all, much better positioned to know the person in question than some distant authority in Salt Lake would be. And I’m willing to believe that this set-up might be best for other offenses which lead to ecclesiastical discipline. But handing apostasy this way causes some unhappy results:
–The inconsistency across stakes is simply unjust. In my stake, people don’t live in fear of having temple recommends pulled for being a member of Ordain Women. There’s something wrong with the system when I can be a firebrand feminist without worry, and my sisters in other places have to be careful what they say.
–It leads to murkiness about what exactly constitutes apostasy, creating a climate of fear. The lowest common denominator—the most conservative bishops and stake presidents—sets the tone for the entire church.
–It allows the church to throw local leaders under the bus when there is controversy: they simply refer to everything as a local matter, and don’t have to take responsibility for their own role in such situations. Plausible deniability wins the day.
I admit to some mixed feelings about this, probably because I do live in the kind of stake I do, and I’d hate to see it bulldozed over by some correlated apostasy guidelines. But I also don’t think the current hit-and-miss system is effective or fair.
Well said, Lynnette! I agree that it’s a nice theory, where local leaders might have useful on-the-ground knowledge that general leaders don’t. But in practice, as you observe, it just means each leader gets to make up his (and I do mean his) own definition of apostasy. This is particularly bizarre in a church that so prides itself on correlation. How many times have you heard people marvel about how they can travel around and hear the same lessons in any LDS church? But they can’t have consistent criteria for what organizations you can’t associate with if you want to retain your membership?
Yep.
Well said. I currently live in a ward with a feminist bishop who really values the input of members of our ward who are outside the mainstream, so to speak. I often think that if I could carry this ward leadership around with me in my pocket, I would never have to fear for my activity in the church. I worry about being forced out by some other leader in some other place, or feeling so silenced and suspect that I couldn’t stand it anymore. I really feel for April.
I also wish our church made distinctions between apostasy and heresy instead of calling everything by a label that doesn’t fit and leads to misunderstandings.
This system would be perfect if we didn’t mandate attendance based on your residence. If we operated more like the Catholic system in which members can choose the parish that works best for them…. we could select a stake or ward that better fit our needs and avoid this whole mess.
Don’t kid yourselves. You are not nearly as safe as you think you are with sympathetic local leaders. Kate Kelly, Denver Snuffer, John Dehlin, and April Bennett each faced discipline within a short time of having sympathetic local leaders replaced by ones much less sympathetic.
I just got a new bishop put in, and he seems fairly open. That gives me what, 5 years of relative safety?
For a church that puts so much effort into carefully scripted PR, it’s strange when some stake president from Virginia or Logan suddenly becomes the voice of the church. At this point the deniability has become quite implausible.
You also have to believe that when the church says it is purely a local matter they are being completely honest. I don’t believe that is always the case.
I pretty much agree with every single thing that has been said here so far.
I’m also not confident that April’s situation was completely local. I wonder if in the next few weeks we’re going to hear of recommends threatened for the rest of the OW board. Excommunications are loud and might end up in the NYT, but pulling recommends is a quieter punishment.
You never know when a good relationship with local leaders might get upset quickly. We have had changes in 5 of 6 of the bishopric and stake presidency members in the last 6 months for our ward. There have also been 9 members of our stake presidency in the past 2 years. There were other reasons for most of the changes besides rooting out apostasy, but the new faces are less known. I had a good personal relationship with 5 of the previous 6 SP members. Now they are all less well known to me.
I will have another round of answering ‘yes’ to the support or affiliate TR question. We can then talk about the international companies I work for, all of the crazy websites I sometimes read, etc. They can then say, ‘that is not what that question means’. OK time to move along.
“The inconsistency across stakes is simply unjust.”
I think this is the weak point in your argument/perspective. Isn’t the whole point of continuing revelation that what is just in one context is not necessarily just in another? I’m pretty sure there are a couple Joseph Smith quote which say exactly that.
In fact, continuing revelation is exactly why we don’t need, and maybe should not want a non-murky definition of apostasy and other sins.
You’re right that there are some draw backs to such an approach, but the same could be said for any approach.
I see what you’re saying about cross-stake consistency, Jeff G, but – but, but, but . . .
It’s pretty clear Kate was tried in her old ward in VA, not in the ward where she was actually living, and her records were not moved on purpose to facilitate the disciplinary council. Why? Shouldn’t the result have been the same (i.e., Kate-centered, not stake-centered if you’ll excuse the pun)?
Or, how about this – the intra-stake inconsistency is simply unjust. April is a worthy, recommend-holding member one day, then after she raises her hand to sustain a new stake president she is suddenly transformed into someone who must resign a non-profit board position and remove her posts or she loses her recommend? What “justice in one context but not in another” does that demonstrate?
I agree that we probably shouldn’t ask that the line be drawn too clearly, but there are some definite downsides to murkiness – not least of which is manipulation.
So this an argument for stronger correlation? Gottcha.
There are ultimately a few choices here…
1. Re-define apostasy
2. Maintain the status quo
3. Centralise the church disciplinary process
My feeling is that the link between publicly speaking about aspects of the church that you are not happy with should NOT be the line in the sand for disciplinary action – as it currently seems to be. This line can be moved as far as leaders want it to move. Are emails, speaking to people, anonymous blog posts etc public…maybe??? With the current definition of apostasy and the way it is being interpreted, most of us could be the subject of such discipline…I support the ideology of OW – I blog about it and comment on it….
So where does it all end…something has to change or else they are going to have to boot out tens of thousands of members all over the world.
My vote….change the definition of apostasy for one that can cope with differing views and including the ability to dissent publicly.
Sounds like a plea for more correlation and more Salt Lake in your life?
I can’t say that I’m a fan of the term “correlation” being thrown around like it is akin to “socialism”. People call our health system (and that of the UK) socialist. I can assure you I’d rather be sick in Australia…
Having a decent definition of apostasy, as long as it is fair, consistent and applied that way, is better than one that is unfair, inconsistent and one where you might just be exed depending on your ward and stake boundaries. Whether we like it or not, we are a big church and it is likely to be run by salt lake for a while yet…I’d rather clarity….
This blog got posted to Reddit then removed by the latter day saint mods. Their loss. You bring up the biggest issues of priesthood roulette.
Jeff G, I’m skeptical about the argument that the inspiration of local leaders protects us from injustice. New Iconoclast makes a good point about how you can have a leader that sees things one way, and the next day you can have a leader who sees things a different way and disciplines you. It seems highly unlikely that the factor that’s changed in the equation is you (that in the interim, you’ve become unworthy). I also think it’s hard to make a case that the context is different when the offenses in question are online. I’m committing the exact same offenses, in the same context of the internet, as people who are getting disciplined, and yet my local leaders don’t seem inspired to mete out the same punishment.
Is this a plea for more correlation? I honestly don’t know. I was hoping someone else would come up with a brilliant solution. 😉 My fear, as I said in the original post, would be that heavy-handed correlation could stamp out the more tolerant pockets of the church. (Though maybe not, as the leaders in those places might be less by-the-book?) And I do think the current system of priesthood roulette is just too deeply flawed to be a viable alternative to clearer guidelines.
Sometimes I’ve wondered whether it would make more sense–and be more responsible–for the church to own its own role in these things, and directly coordinate them from Salt Lake. I realize that that could be a logistical nightmare, but it still seems more honest, and more fair. And if it would mean that many, many more people would be under the gun, well, do what is right–excommunicate thousands of people–and let the consequence follow. Though I suspect that what would actually happen in such a situation is that the church, in order to avoid that scenario, would decide that you had to be pretty far out to be disciplined for apostasy.
Lynnette,
“Jeff G, I’m skeptical about the argument that the inspiration of local leaders protects us from injustice.”
No surprise there. I think that the only real protection we really have is from God alone and, regardless of how comfortable we are with it, God has chosen to act through living people rather than hard-lined rules. To be sure, these people will not be perfect, but I think a turn to stale and lifeless constitutions or theologies is very much at odds with the Mormon tradition.
“New Iconoclast makes a good point about how you can have a leader that sees things one way, and the next day you can have a leader who sees things a different way and disciplines you. It seems highly unlikely that the factor that’s changed in the equation is you (that in the interim, you’ve become unworthy).”
I don’t think that Mormonism is committed to any such thing. There is a (I think strong) possibility that worthiness is not a simple measure of our having lived up to abstract and universal laws. Rather, it has very much to do with our relationship, not only to God but to His people as well.
“I’m committing the exact same offenses, in the same context of the internet, as people who are getting disciplined, and yet my local leaders don’t seem inspired to mete out the same punishment.”
This claim is exactly what I’m calling into question. I don’t think any two cases are *exactly* the same. Yes, I see that this opens the door to some degree of error and abuse, but this risk is exactly what a tradition based in continuing revelation given to authority figures embraces.
In other words, the attempt to close these gaps in which error and abuse might emerge with hard-lined rules is precisely the move that closes the door on revelation. The Enlightenment’s endorsement of the rule of law was specifically aimed at preventing authority figures from claiming revelation on some matter. The question is whether we can close the door on illegitimate claims to revelation from authority figures without also doing so on legitimate claims to such. Hard-lined rules, theologies and constitutions, I suggest, are not able to respect this distinction.
“And if it would mean that many, many more people would be under the gun, well, do what is right–excommunicate thousands of people–and let the consequence follow.”
What is ironic is that someone as hated as me would love this to happen as well, and we would be the “survivors” of such purges. I really don’t think you are thinking clearly on this from a liberal point of view, no matter how much I wish the LDS Church *could* be hardlined.
jettboy, as I think you know, I was saying that not entirely seriously. I actually think it would be a disaster on all kinds of levels, not least a moral one, if this were to happen. That’s quite different from thinking it would be a positive thing (as you’ve made clear that you do).
Jeff G,
“I don’t think any two cases are *exactly* the same. Yes, I see that this opens the door to some degree of error and abuse, but this risk is exactly what a tradition based in continuing revelation given to authority figures embraces.”
Embracing revelation doesn’t require not having checks on that revelation, to lessen that potential for error and abuse.
“In other words, the attempt to close these gaps in which error and abuse might emerge with hard-lined rules is precisely the move that closes the door on revelation.”
And yet we have a handbook which spells out all kinds of minutiae, and a list of excommunicable offenses. There’s a whole lot that we don’t leave up to the personal revelation of local leadership. I think it’s a stretch to say that we don’t have a tradition of hard-lined rules. I think where we’re disagreeing is in which situations stricter guidelines should apply, and when it makes sense to leave them fuzzier.
I think that’s an excellent point, Lynnette. We don’t even have to leave the temple recommend interview to find examples that are much more clearly spelled out. The Word of Wisdom, for example. The list of banned substances isn’t left up the the discretion of each local leader.
“Embracing revelation doesn’t require not having checks on that revelation, to lessen that potential for error and abuse.”
What makes you think that things such as static, hard-lined rules, laws and theologies are the only or even the best check on authority? That assumption seems pretty weak.
“And yet we have a handbook which spells out all kinds of minutiae, and a list of excommunicable offenses.”
Again, I think this is a pretty weak response. 1) The guidebook is just that, a guide. 2) The fact that we have such a list of rules – if they are such – is not at all evidence that we ought to have them, the Law of Moses being a good example.
“I think where we’re disagreeing is in which situations stricter guidelines should apply, and when it makes sense to leave them fuzzier.”
This is close, but not really where I think we truly disagree. I think a more crucial point of disagreement lies in the fact that I don’t think it’s my place to have hard opinions regarding which situations are more tightly regulated. I insist that neither of us knows enough on our own and neither of us is authorized to receive revelation on the subject. I suspect your views on the matter are very different in that you think something like “peer review” is the best path to truth rather than following the leader that is uniquely authorized to receive revelation on the matter.
There are definitely risks in each of our perspectives here. I run the risk of accepting false revelation as true and you run the risk of rejecting true revelation as false. The question is, which is the more dangerous risk in the eternal scheme of things?
I think you simply underestimate the extent to which personal biases and attitudes make a difference in how leaders interpret revelation. If that makes me potentially too skeptical of revelation, so be it.
“The question is, which is the more dangerous risk in the eternal scheme of things?”
That’s a fun theological game to play. But I think more relevant questions would be: are people getting harmed by the current set-up? To the extent that that’s the case, what can we do to make the situation better?
I read a thread on Facebook this morning in which people recounted their experiences of getting disciplined for things like supporting OW, and just how devastating those experiences have been. It hurt. There is simply no question that church discipline is being inconsistently applied, that it’s safe to have certain views in one stake and not in another. If you can’t see something that basic, then I honestly don’t know how to engage you.
At the risk of missing, or ignoring an invitation to disengagement,
“I think you simply underestimate the extent to which personal biases and attitudes make a difference in how leaders interpret revelation.”
I don’t deny this influence at all. However, it is one thing to say the personal biases and attitudes are relevant (we both agree on this) and it is another to take the next step in insisting that this is a morally bad thing (this is where we disagree). I don’t think you’ve justified the transition from the first to the second stance. Furthermore, I don’t see why the church leadership and the Lord Himself could not anticipate these biases, etc. (in the way that you claim to be able to) and adjust the content of their instructions accordingly. In other words, I see no reason why biases preclude revelation any more than they would preclude reason.
“If that makes me potentially too skeptical of revelation, so be it.”
I assume you do not mean skeptical of ALL revelation. I just worry when people think that reason (is “skepticism” code for this?) is the only check we have on authority. This is simply not the case. Too often people are suspicious of following and obeying persons in authority rather than obeying and following texts (scriptures, guidebooks and other words that exist independent of persons). I find such a preference for the written over the spoken word very un-Mormon.
“That’s a fun theological game to play. But I think more relevant questions would be: are people getting harmed by the current set-up? ”
But religion does not claim to be any less than a theological game in the sense that you use here. If we measured all beliefs and policies with regards to their effects in this mortal life, then we would have a seriously watered down religion indeed. The scriptures are full of examples where people get hurt in this life – often without any obvious justification at all. This is especially the case when the kind of hurt we are talking about is very difficult to disentangle from merely being offended.
“To the extent that that’s the case, what can we do to make the situation better?”
Again, this is the main point of disagreement. Of course we should want to help people who are hurting, but there are certain limitations on who can help in what ways. In the case at issue, a Stake President (or his local equivalent) – and none other – is to prayerfully apply the guidance found in the church handbook. The upper leadership – and nobody else – is to prayerfully decide how much space and leniency the church handbook allows Stake Presidents regarding different issues. At no point in either of these processes are “we” supposed to make the situation better since “we” are not authorized to receive answers to prayers on such issues.
“There is simply no question that church discipline is being inconsistently applied, that it’s safe to have certain views in one stake and not in another.”
You make a few assumptions here. 1) You assume that these inconsistencies are necessarily bad. 2) You assume that there isn’t some method beneath the madness – that there isn’t actually some non-obvious consistency. 3) You assume that “having certain views” is the point at issue and none other. I’m not sold on any of these, let alone all of them together.
If you are either unable to or simply see no need to support these assumptions, that’s fine. Our moral positions always bottom out at some point. It’s just not very charitable to assume this is the fault of some other person.
Jeff, honestly, your complete deference to authority is more than a little frightening.
Ziff,
You among many others consistently ignore my repeated assertions against such a thing. Why is that? I’ve said so many times in so many ways that just because reason is not a faithful means of constraining leadership does not mean that there are no faithful constraints upon them at all. Why do you insist that my position amounts to “complete deference” in spite of these many assertions?
Jeff, are you implying that the inconsistencies across stakes and from one stake president to another is good? I’m not understanding what you are trying to get at here.
April’s previous SP thought she was just fine where she was (as did April), switch the man and suddenly, despite that being the only change, she’s not fine? Except she still feels she is. Switch the man again, what if he feels April is fine (and she continues to feel so)? How is that inconsistency good?
Or is it simply that you are reserving judgement about whether or not it is good or bad because you don’t know?
That last sentence is much closer to what I’m saying.
I worry that placing our faith in universal and inflexible laws, theologies, etc. is a relatively modern invention aimed at sidelining all contextual decisions from authority figures since some of them had and will always exploit this flexibility toward evil ends. This move, however seems to throw the legitimate priesthood authority baby out with the illegitimate unrighteousness dominion water.
These are the reasons why I am suspicious of a strong insistence upon universal consistency and the like. I’m not strongly for the inconsistencies in question, nor am I strongly against them. I also think it’s a little presumptuous for human reason (which is the most that anybody who is unauthorized to receive revelation on the subject can ever have to rely upon) to think itself qualified to be strongly for or against such things.