There’s a certain flavor of criticism of the Church that I’ve seen before that I think of as criticism from first principles. It doesn’t criticize the Church in comparison with other churches, or with secular organizations or secular norms, or with its own history or scriptures or rules, but rather just with a feel of what a church that’s actually listening to God should be doing. I feel like the revelations in the past few years of just how much wealth the Church has amassed, for example, have drawn a lot of critiques like this. It just doesn’t seem right for a church, of all organizations, to have so much money.
You can probably explain both the criticisms of this type and the apologetic responses as well as I can. The apologetic responses are straightforward. Our ways aren’t God’s ways. Like Job, where were we when God laid the foundations of the earth? Our role is to go and do as we’re told like Nephi, not murmur about every little thing like his brothers.
In any case, that’s the type of criticism I’m raising today. My question is why the Church, which rhetorically makes such a big deal about being un-worldly, do such a great job of copying the world’s hierarchies. I was thinking through the most obvious hierarchies we can see out there in the world in general, where one group of people has more power than another, and it seems like the Church, in spite of its rhetoric, manages to borrow them all.
- Men over women: Patriarchy is one of the most prominent features of the Church. Sure, with time, the rhetoric around it has softened into a more chicken form, and since Ordain Women, GAs have told women that they really kinda sorta had the priesthood all along. But the fact is that the Church is still run by men and men only, both at a general and a local level. Women are advisors at best, and they’re frequently straight up ignored.
- White people over people of color: The Church banned black people from the priesthood and temple for over a century before finally changing course in 1978. But of course race relations in the Church didn’t immediately become hunky dory afterward. As incidents like the 2012 comments by then-BYU professor Randy Bott, and Brad Wilcox’s repeated talks a decade later where he said the real question was why white people, not black people, had to wait so long for the priesthood, racism is alive and well in the Church in the 21st century. And it doesn’t only target black people, as for example the video Johnny Lingo illustrates. Really, just a quick glance at the pictures of General Authorities and General Officers shows how white Church leadership remains.
- Straight, cisgender people over LGBTQ people: This seems like the defining feature of the Church in the past few decades. On the small bright side, Church rhetoric has largely moved away from things like Boyd K. Packer’s infamous “To the One” talk, or Ernest Wilkinson saying BYU didn’t intend to admit any gay people, and telling any who were there to self-expell. But especially with its emphasis on gender and straight marriage and childbearing, the Church really still has very little room for anyone who isn’t straight and cisgender.
- Wealthy people over poor people: Like a lot of people of a lot of religions, we talk a good game about concern for poor people, and even put some money where our mouth is. But also, the Church is now obviously in the wealth-amassing business far more than it is concerned with anything charitable. And look at who’s elevated to positions of authority, both at the general and the local level: men who are middle-class or wealthier. And yes, I know how someone will say that when they were a kid, their bishop was a plumber. But that’s the exception that proves the rule: you remember it because it’s striking, against the background of bishops who are among the better-off people in their wards.
- Married people over single people: I think this one has been really attenuated in the rest of the world, but single people have often been viewed with some suspicion. The US has only had one unmarried president, for example. In the Church, bishops have to be married, and I’ve never seen it stated explicitly, but it seems quite clear that General Authorities and General Officers have to be married too. In an LDS context, if you aren’t married, you’re seen as kind of a half-person at best, and possibly just a burden on your ward.
- Americans over everyone else: The Church was established in the US, so it’s not surprising that for a long time, its members and leaders were overwhelmingly American. I’ve read a few Conference talks from the 1960s and 70s, and one thing that’s striking is how speakers occasionally make clear that they assume their audience is American, with people in other places being nice, but not really material. For example, here’s a line from a 1976 Spencer W. Kimball talk: “You will be interested to note that the Church is growing rapidly in many foreign lands, as well as in our own country.” Like with other issues, Church rhetoric has moved, but I think is still far from where it should be. Church leaders are far more concerned with political and social issues in the US than anywhere else. The Church’s membership base may be slowly shifting from the US toward Africa, but its mental base remains in Salt Lake.
Are there any hierarchies prevalent in the world that the Church doesn’t borrow? For that matter, the very idea of needing a hierarchy at all is also obviously imported from the broader culture. Like I said at the beginning, from first principles, this just seems wrong to me on a fundamental level. The Church preaches difference from the world, but even with an ostensibly counter-cultural God, we still end up looking just like the rest of the world in which groups of people we elevate over which other groups.
You raise some interesting and sincere questions for those who believe. To me, the obvious answer is the church is a product of 19th Century America and adopted all of the hierarchies of that society during that time. The church even hints at this in the Race and Priesthood essay, yet is ironically silent about sexism influencing polygamy or priesthood for women. Go figure. All are alike unto God, when it’s convenient.
It’s strange how dismantling these hierarchies is seen as a new liberal phenomenon, when these hierarchies are completely contrary to God’s greatest commandments and fly in the face of Jesus’s ministry.
Another hierarchical issue is that the Bible constantly references God’s heaven as a kingdom. I believe it was King James who had a vested interest in more explicitly painting God as a monarch through various translations. While I can appreciate Jesus referencing current cultural and political comparisons that people of his time could connect with, I feel that heaven is not at all like a kingdom ruled by an all-powerful king. Yet it is with that distance and deference that many Apostles view God. Because they view God as a kingly sire throned in a heavenly realm, they create more layers of hierarchy: nobles, knights, scribes, peasants, etc. These type of medieval classes can be representative of the modern church population, not explicitly of course. But it would be an apt comparison to consider the Apostles the nobles of the King’s court. They rule the fiefdoms of God’s kingdom, collect tithes from His subjects, administer His laws, etc.
All of this monarchy rhetoric is antithetical to the familial bonds we share with God as our Father. This is especially true from a feminine perspective I feel. I have never approached God as a king but only as my loving father. And like any father who embodies only the best traits of the role, He is kind, patient, long-suffering, encouraging, and emotionally invested in my life. He also fully supports and encourages my relationship with my Heavenly Mother, which is the only righteous and loving thing to do in a perfectly healthy family. I find the notion of God lording over an exclusive kingdom a very human invention. Such a hierarchy would never be necessary in a heavenly place where we all will have no more desire to do evil and we will love each other unconditionally.
Ziff, I would add a top-down leadership style as a hierarchy the Church copies. While good leaders seek input from all the people they serve or are in charge of, there are plenty of leaders in and out of the Church who do not.
Also, on married people over single people, I believe several female General Officers have been called who are single (never married) or widowed. There have been General Authorities and General Officers who lose a spouse but continue to serve. I don’t know, however, if mission presidents who lose a spouse are released or continue to serve.
The Church could change nothing about its LGBTQ policies, but if an otherwise qualified gay man or lesbian woman were called as a General Authority or General Officer, it would send a clear message that the Church is a little more serious about accepting its LGBTQ members as fellow saints. I’m not holding my breath, however. I’m still surprised (but pleased) there is now a pope who was born in Chicago!
Here’s another example of the Church very depressingly following the ways of the “world”: nationwide, roughly 66% of all college instruction is now performed by low-wage adjuncts, lecturers, and grad students, the vast majority of whom earn below the poverty line. It is a national disgrace for the “contingent faculty” rate to be this high, especially in an era of sky-high tuition.
Yet that number still pales compared to the Church schools: when I taught at (what used to be called) LDS Business College in the early-2010s, a staggering 90% of the instructors were adjuncts! That is objectively even worse! I also taught at Salt Lake Community College at the time, and the Dean was at least apologetic about how many adjuncts the state budget let them hire; meanwhile, LDSBC openly bragged about their adjunct rate at a faculty Christmas party I attended.
It was especially infuriating, because even in the early-2010s, the Church had more than enough money to pay living wages to all their instructors. Christ himself in the Book of Mormon directly quotes Malachi that “ I will be a swift witness against […] those that oppress the hireling in his wages,” so you’d think with an endorsement like that, the LDS Church would be extra cautious about underpaying employees, but no: the Church doesn’t just copy but exceeds the ways of the world in exploiting workers, at least at its colleges.
Thanks for your comments, Mary, Jim, and JB. You all raised more interesting points than I did in the post! Mary, I hadn’t even thought of the labeling of God’s government as a kingdom as being politically motivated. It certainly seems out of place for us to continue to hang on to it. Jim, thanks for pointing out the exceptions to the singleness rule. I’m with you on thinking it would be positive step to call an LGBTQ person to a high-level calling. And yeah, JB, that’s an excellent point about adjunct faculty. It’s sad that this is yet another area where the Church could deploy its tremendous wealth to make the world a little better, but refuses to do so.
You mention that General Officers have to be married. This is mostly true, but it feels like every Relief Society General Presidency has had a single woman in it, from Sheri Dew on down. That’s about it. They’d NEVER call a single man as a GA or Second Counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency (what if he’s gay? Would be horrible for the Church if he’d previously given firesides about being abnormal or, worse, if John Dehlin got ahold of his Grindr screenshots). Widowers and attractive spinsters only need apply.
Yes, Ziff—and not just in structure or hierarchy. The Church often mirrors worldly power in its teachings, too. We’re told to “put off the natural man,” but then the Church defends marriage, procreation, and gender roles through an odd appeal to natural power and biology—as if the fact that something happens in nature makes it sacred. But to say something is part of the natural world is not to say it is divine. Nature includes disease, decay, and death. We don’t worship hurricanes or dictators… so why do we affirm natural power dynamics in family life and human relationships as theology? I just find it strange how the Gospel calls us to transcend nature and earthly power, and yet we end up kind of canonizing them.
Good point, Scooter. Women can maybe be single and only pitied, but if men aren’t single, they’re straight up trouble, and not to be trusted with high callings!
And Hunter, great connection! We kind of talk out of both sides of our mouths on whether natural things are good or not.