(Tinkering Intensifies)

When my sisters and friends started ZD way back during the Hinckley administration, I had an idea of how the Church worked that turned out to be false. I thought that the Church was clearly a slow-moving organization that would make a serious change only every generation or two. I figured that most of what they (we, as I joined only later) blogged about would be long-term issues on which the Church hadn’t changed its approach for decades.

My view turned out to be wrong because it turned out that Church leaders are tinkering with policies all the time. Just a few examples: They raised the bar on missionary service, making it harder to go on a mission, and then later they lowered the missionary ages. In response to Ordain Women, they started broadcasting the priesthood session of Conference. They added some of the women leaders to the Church-level committees. In response to (or in spite of?) Let Women Pray, they started having a few women pray in General Conference. In response to organized agitation from folks at BCC and fMh (and others, I’m sure), they clarified the policy on allowing young women to do baptisms for the dead while on their periods. In response to the Obergefell decision, they modified the Handbook to add the Exclusion Policy.

One thing I’m still unsure of is whether Church leaders were always tinkering with policies like this, or whether it was a new thing where they considered changes more quickly in the new sped-up internet-powered world. I’m kind of guessing the former, but I suspect people who know more Church history than I do will have a more informed answer.

But what I really want to talk about is the accelerated tinkering of the Nelson administration. To me, he seems obviously far more willing to change things that he doesn’t think are working than any of his predecessors in my lifetime. Just last week, the Church released news of the latest change: the end of the one-year waiting period between civil marriages and temple sealings in countries where temple sealers are authorized to perform marriages. Of course before that there was the ending of the Exclusion Policy, the temple ceremony changes at the beginning of the year, the deprecation of the use of “Mormon” as a name for the Church or its members, the relaxed rules on missionaries calling home, the combining of priesthood quorums, and the revision of visiting and home teaching into the ministering program. And I’m sure I’m missing others.

The overall pattern of how these changes have been rolled out is similar in a number of ways:

• The change is explained as being in line with God’s will. For example, the Mormon Newsroom statement when the Exclusion Policty was ended concluded “These policy changes come after an extended period of counseling with our brethren in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and after fervent, united prayer to understand the will of the Lord on these matters.” When the priesthood quorums were combined, President Nelson said “These adjustments are inspired of the Lord.”
• Reasons may also be offered for why the new policy is better than the previous one. For example, on the change in missionaries calling home, the First Presidency statement said, “Regular communication with their families is an important part of a missionary’s service.” When the Exclusion Policy was ended, Elder Oaks said “The very positive policies announced this morning should help affected families. In addition, our members’ efforts to show more understanding, compassion and love should increase respect and understanding among all people of goodwill. We want to reduce the hate and contention so common today.” When the priesthood quorums were combined, Elder Christofferson said, “Having one Melchizedek Priesthood quorum in a ward unifies priesthood holders to accomplish all aspects of the work of salvation, including the temple and family history work previously coordinated by the high priests groups. It allows quorum members of all ages and backgrounds to benefit from the perspective and experience of one another and of those in different stages of life. It also provides additional opportunities for experienced priesthood holders to mentor others, including prospective elders, new members, young adults, and those returning to Church activity.”Of course, this wasn’t true of the temple changes, which weren’t announced but were simply made, and which patrons were explicitly told not to discuss with others.
• There is, however, no explanation offered for why, given the good reasons offered, the particular change is being made now, rather than last week or twenty years ago.
• There is no acknowledgement that anyone might have made what now appear to have been unneeded sacrifices when the previous policy was in effect. There is no sign of backing off on President Oaks’s well-known statement that the Church doesn’t apologize.

I think the combination of these last two items is clearly a deliberate decision. President Nelson seems to me to bask in members’ adoration more openly than any other Church President of my lifetime, and he seems to dearly love his infallibility. He clearly does not want to open cracks in his armor of infallibility by apologizing for or even acknowledging mistakes made or harm caused by Church policies. So I think the combination of these last two items is clearly also harmful, first to the members of the Church, but also ultimately to members’ loyalty to the Church.

For changes like the combining of the priesthood quorums, the Church’s refusal to acknowledge that maybe the rationales offered for making the change might have applied just as well decades ago as they do now is a pretty minor issue. It seems unlikely that many men were harmed greatly or made many sacrifices for the old policy (although I admit that it has made life easier for me, an aging elder who was unlikely to ever be advanced to being a high priest).

For changes like the more frequent missionary calls home, it seems like there might be some issue with no acknowledgement of past sacrifice, as missionaries of the past made the (possibly) large sacrifice of calling home only twice a year. But at least missions are only a year or two long, so the sacrifice is limited in length.

For changes like the Exclusion Policy and the temple ceremony changes, refusing to acknowledge the sacrifices people have made or the pain they have experienced is huge. The Exclusion Policy was a big kick in the teeth to LGBT Mormons, particularly young LGBT Mormons who were still in the process of working out what their relationship with the Church was going to be. Certainly it contributed to depression, and likely it contributed to suicide as well. The policy ended up lasting just over three years, but of course for an LGBT teen living through it, there was no reason to believe that it would ever end. In addition to all the other ways that the Church signals to them that they aren’t wanted, there was this big stamp of divine disapproval waiting to hit them if they dared to legally solemnize a loving relationship they might enter.

And the temple changes are if anything even worse, because they potentially affect half of all Church members. Generations and generations of women have been required to covenant to obey or hearken to their husbands (even if their husbands were only hypothetical people) in a dramatically unequal way that continued to give the lie to the gradually more egalitarian messages being preached about marriage in the Church outside the temple. This made the temple painful for many women. And then, one day in January, the ceremonies were changed with no notice or comment, and women were supposed to suddenly forget all the pain, because apparently it didn’t actually matter.

The dropping of the one-year waiting period for a sealing after a civil marriage seems like another case where there’s a lot of pain that goes unacknowledged when the Church just does a quick about-face. My impression is that people’s pain over this change is different from people’s pain over the end of the Exclusion Policy and the temple ceremony changes. In the cases of those changes, the policies were things forced on Church members. They didn’t have much choice. In the case of the sealing waiting period change, by contrast, it seems like those who suffered because of it felt like it was a choice to get married in the temple even if it meant excluding family and friends, but it was a terribly difficult one, where they had to seriously consider the sacrifice they were making. And now the importance of that sacrifice is swept away unacknowledged.

In any case, regardless of any differences, I suspect that Church leaders’ refusal to acknowledge the suffering the past policies caused might erode members’ trust and confidence in them. I understand that GAs strongly prefer not to be questioned on decisions they’ve made, and on the whole, they seem to prefer to simply suggest that every decision they’ve made comes directly from God’s mouth. But I think that when they’re so obviously just tinkering with policies to figure out what might work, they spend members’ goodwill every time they invoke God and ignore members’ pain. I’m just guessing, of course, and I know I’m a fairly fringe member, but I do wonder if this might not hit members who are solidly in the mainstream too. GAs appear to think that members’ reservoir of goodwill toward the Church is endless, and they will accept anything that the GAs say has come from God. But I think in the end it’s probably limited.

I know it would require a tremendous shift in GA and Church culture, but I think that GAs might do better at preserving members’ goodwill toward the Church if they were more open about the fact that they’re just trying policies to see what works. I think they would do better to acknowledge that past policies have caused members tremendous pain in many cases, and some policies were clearly mistakes. If they took a “we’re all in this together while we figure out what works” approach rather than the current approach of “this is what God says, so don’t question it even if he just changed his mind for no discernible reason,” I wonder if members might feel less hurt by the changes. I think they would do better to admit that, while they pray for inspiration, perhaps they’re not always acting 100% in accordance with God’s will. I don’t have a lot of hope for any type of change along these lines to occur soon–certainly not under President Nelson or President Oaks, but as with so many changes, I hope that if Elder Uchtdorf made it to the top spot, he might change some things for the better, including how Church leaders think and talk about changes they’re making. I appreciate President Nelson’s willingness to tinker and figure out what might work better for the Church and which existing policies could be discontinued. I just wish that he and other Church leaders would acknowledge what they’re doing and consider more seriously and acknowledge the pain and the sacrifices people have made because of them they make changes.