Where is the safe place at church?

[deacon blues]

I am listening to Bill Reel on spiritual abuse, and I love his question, "Where is the safe place in the church for us to tell our truth?" As he says, Sunday School and Priesthood mtgs. are not safe places. The church needs to create a safe place where people can say, "It is not my fault that I was taught incorrect, incomplete, and deceptive information. Since church leaders have not yet built a place, people are building their own places.
Isn't it odd that the church seems to be coming up with groups that help people "recover" from pornography, but still hasn't figured out that they should build groups to help people deal with institutional dishonesty.

[Hagoth]

Harmon's on 138th South is 0.8 miles from an LDS church, according to Google Maps. That's about as close as you'll get. 10:00am Sunday morning.

It will be a cold day in St. George when the church admits institutional dishonesty. The whole point of Bill's beautiful rant was that the church cannot/will not admit error and only creates unsafe places for its victims. That's how it maintains its power, by portraying doubters as sad, pathetic weaklings who don't deserve a place to be heard. 98 pound weaklings who deserve to have sand kicked in their faces. If the church ever hits rock bottom and realizes the need to repent and apologize it will probably be too late.

As you can tell, I'm not feeling too hopeful today.

Maybe it will just require an entire generation or two to die off and make room for new people who grew up in a world with the internet and gay people.

[No Tof]

I agree. The safe places are not in the church buildings or if inside it's in the foyer.

NOM is a safe place and fulfills a need for members looking to vent and hear opinions without much negative recoil.

This IMO is a big reason for many of us leaving our comfortable places/pews of cog bias to search for what is really going on in our world.

I feel this situation is the way it is and will always be in the church, but I like surprises. Surprise me.

[Not Buying It]

And it is going to get progressively less safe, not more safe. The Brethren want to be able to say the troubling issues are addressed without anybody ever addressing them - hence the groundless talk about more openness and transparency when in reality you are still the Ward pariah if you bring up the hard issues.

The video of the young girl being shut down has been a painful reminder to the Church and its members that there are hard issues they don't want to talk about - hence all the nonsense about "the problem wasn't what she was saying, Testimony Meeting just isn't the place to say it". That bit of ludicrous justification allows the members to resolve their cognitive dissonance without dealing with the fact that there is a video flying around the internet of a young woman being bullied for talking about being a lesbian in Testimony Meeting. Rather than admit it was wrong, the members are peeved it makes the Church look bad and have latched onto any feeble justification they can for a religious authority turning off the microphone of a 12 year old girl in an open mic meeting because he doesn't like what she says.

It will get worse - because it can't get better without the Church losing power over the members, and they will do anything to preserve their power.

[Hagoth]

And it is going to get progressively less safe, not more safe. The Brethren want to be able to say the troubling issues are addressed without anybody ever addressing them - hence the groundless talk about more openness and transparency when in reality you are still the Ward pariah if you bring up the hard issues.

This is a fascinating phenomenon. I suppose it comes from the fact that the church was dragged kicking and screaming into it's new transparency, simply because they could no longer maintain their denial of cover-ups because anyone with a computer and 30 minutes to spare could uncover the lies - something that the old guys at the top really had a hard time comprehending. But in the end, their semi-transparency isn't doing what they hoped because the people who actually do the studying will see that: a) even the transparent admissions are chock-full-o' half-truths, and b) they don't really give any good answers. But what's really bothersome is that the church leadership goes on pretending that this is the story they've always told, without admission of fault or apology. And people just swallow it!

Despite any public claims of transparency and acceptance, the SM talks in my ward this week were as fundamentalist, as homophobic, and as unbeliever-intolerant as ever.

[Spicy McHaggis]

The safest place in church is spending Sundays on a trail somewhere.

[Palerider]

The "safe place" in the church is only in the Bishop's or Stake President's office where they can keep the rest of the members safe from a member's uncomfortable questions who is doing a thorough investigation.

Which brings up the question:

Why do they call them "investigators"?

Once a person joins the church after hearing only the church's side of things, does that mean all continuing investigation must cease? Or is frowned upon? No more seeking for the truth because we have it all. No need to delve further? We'll tell you the correlated way to think from here on out.

This sounds a little like the guy in my last ward who married his wife (she in good faith) and she only discovered after the wedding that he gave her a genital disease. When she asked him why he didn't fess up BEFORE they were married, he replied, "I thought we should share everything..."

So once you are baptized you get to "share" all of the dirty, secret burdens of Joseph Smith and his cronies.

[2bizE]

I agree. The safe places are not in the church buildings or if inside it's in the foyer.

NOM is a safe place and fulfills a need for members looking to vent and hear opinions without much negative recoil.

This IMO is a big reason for many of us leaving our comfortable places/pews of cog bias to search for what is really going on in our world.

I feel this situation is the way it is and will always be in the church, but I like surprises. Surprise me.

Yep, the foyer is the safest. The kitchen is a close second.

[oliver_denom]

And it is going to get progressively less safe, not more safe. The Brethren want to be able to say the troubling issues are addressed without anybody ever addressing them - hence the groundless talk about more openness and transparency when in reality you are still the Ward pariah if you bring up the hard issues.

There was a brief moment when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints seemed to perfectly align with the times. From the 1940's to the 1960's they weren't outlaw polygamists, and they were no longer intent on taking over the government or using the powers of heaven to curse their gentile neighbors. Instead, they found a comfortable place where they could suddenly get along with mainstream America and not appear too weird. We won the war, Ezra Benson was in the White House, and David McKay was happily performing press interviews and touring Hollywood studios. Life was grand, and the notion that the now growing church would fill the whole earth was tantalizingly within reach.

But then Kennedy was assassinated, the Cold War kicked into high gear, Vietnam escalated, the country desegregated, women began encroaching the male dominated work place, young people were protesting, smoking pot, and having promiscuous sex. Seemingly overnight, the Mormon utopia crumbled. The world moved on, but the church stubbornly remained in place. It remained in the spot it had felt most comfortable and most hopeful, 1945 - 1963. The new world wasn't a comfortable place and the church was no longer aligned. They were being called things like "racist" and "sexist", and they did not like that one bit. They stuck to their guns, they retrenched just like their polygamist forefathers, except this time the government wasn't going to send an army to shut them down, instead they sent news crews and public opinion. They hit them where it hurts, right in the public image and BYU athletic programs. So they changed as little as absolutely possible to preserve a semblance of respectability, but even that is coming to an end.

So now they have a choice. They can change and experience better growth and retention, or they can continue to retrench and become smaller and more fundamentalist. I've come to the conclusion that they've chosen the latter path, and I believe they are at the point of no return. With 90 year old men at the helm, they will always be decades behind the times, and since they pick their replacements, the fundamentalist view point will be preserved well past its expiration date. The church can ride out its accumulated wealth for a century or more, even as its numbers shrink smaller and smaller. They will become more fundamentalist, less tolerant, and even more authoritarian. It's not that they have to, it's that they WANT to. They've won. It's their church. And at some point we have to move on and allow them to destroy themselves. It's awful, and it sucks, but it's a hell of their own making.

[Mormorrisey]

The short answer is, there simply isn't. Not for the kinds of questions that we have. And that's the sad thing.

There was a brief moment when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints seemed to perfectly align with the times. From the 1940's to the 1960's they weren't outlaw polygamists, and they were no longer intent on taking over the government or using the powers of heaven to curse their gentile neighbors. Instead, they found a comfortable place where they could suddenly get along with mainstream America and not appear too weird. We won the war, Ezra Benson was in the White House, and David McKay was happily performing press interviews and touring Hollywood studios. Life was grand, and the notion that the now growing church would fill the whole earth was tantalizingly within reach.

This is great analysis. I would argue that a similar golden age was found in the Hinckley years, with his press junkets and a growth rate that was the envy of the religious community, and the tantalizing view of 50 million members by 2030. And the problem is:

So now they have a choice. They can change and experience better growth and retention, or they can continue to retrench and become smaller and more fundamentalist. I've come to the conclusion that they've chosen the latter path, and I believe they are at the point of no return. With 90 year old men at the helm, they will always be decades behind the times, and since they pick their replacements, the fundamentalist view point will be preserved well past its expiration date. The church can ride out its accumulated wealth for a century or more, even as its numbers shrink smaller and smaller. They will become more fundamentalist, less tolerant, and even more authoritarian. It's not that they have to, it's that they WANT to. They've won. It's their church. And at some point we have to move on and allow them to destroy themselves. It's awful, and it sucks, but it's a hell of their own making.

I absolutely agree with this last paragraph. And that's where we are, and WHY the church has no safe places. The only safe place is complete and utter agreement with the powers that be.

[blazerb]

I agree. There is no safe place for most of us at church.

What frustrates me is that there is a safe place for some questioning members. So, the Givens and the Bushmans can openly question what we are taught. I have read many blog posts over at BCC that questioned some pretty basic things at church. They even get to teach them in gospel doctrine class. (For example, one post dismissed the idea that the BoM teaches that sexual sin is next to murder.) Some people, if they are well known, get those safe spaces to ask questions and disagree with the church narrative. Heck, Steve Young gets to openly oppose Prop 8. John Dehlin used to be in this group until someone decided he was no longer valuable to the church. Hugh Nibley could say some pretty cutting things about the leadership of the church, but he did it very obliquely. It seems that it's safe to question if you're well known but not too popular in your views. I'm sure leadership roulette plays a part, also.

I have sometimes wondered if I could have made the church work if I had been able to openly question like some get to.

[RubinHighlander]

The safest place in church is spending Sundays on a trail somewhere.

+1

O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain;

Isaiah 40:9

[Corsair]

Steve Young gets to openly oppose Prop 8. John Dehlin used to be in this group until someone decided he was no longer valuable to the church. Hugh Nibley could say some pretty cutting things about the leadership of the church, but he did it very obliquely. It seems that it's safe to question if you're well known but not too popular in your views. I'm sure leadership roulette plays a part, also.

Part of the difference is that Givens and Bushman very overtly support Thomas Monson and the other 14 apostles in their callings in a general way. They have a testimony of Jesus that encompasses the LDS church even if their testimony does not strictly equal the institutional LDS church. They can quietly acknowledge that perhaps someone might might find joy outside the LDS church, but they remain supportive of LDS authority of the ordinances of salvation. They also confidently state how much they appreciate the faith and doctrine of the LDS church. I don't doubt their sincerity. But I have fundamental differences with their outlook and this would probably get me disciplined if I were public about my feelings.

In contrast, John Dehlin openly acknowledged that some people could and should be happier outside the LDS church. This was not acceptable to LDS leaders. Kate Kelly tried to work within the framework of the LDS church, but ultimately would not accept official answer so she also was removed.

Steve Young is too much of a celebrity and I would put Carol Lynn Pearson in that same category. If either of them were more antagonistic then it would make more sense for the church to silence them. But both of them are a iconoclastic in one narrowly defined area (LGBT issues) and both of them pay tithing and do their home and visiting teaching.

This is difficult for a non-celebrity, low profile Mormon with difficult questions. Leadership roulette will affect the outcome as well as how vocal such a Mormon becomes. Finding a group outside the church is a good idea and NOM fulfills that role for many people. Pursuing some kind of institutional acknowledgement of the issues and concerns never happens on an official level and rarely happens even on a personal level.

[1smartdodog]

I think Bill has only lasted as long as he has in the church because he has a podcast and is a public figure to some degree.It prohibits him from just leaving because his identity is built on some kind of quasi believing Mormon concept. It will be hard for him to just say it is all made up.

AS for safe places in the church I think people want to much. You are not going to get people to do things that are uncomfortable for them just so you feel comfortable. It is not human nature. Why people keep thinking members care about the feelings of doubters I do not get.

I would tell Bill just go to church if you like it and enjoy what you can but quit trying to get it to adapt to you. It won't, at least not for 30 years or so.

When I attend church off and on I just go with the flow and try to be positive. There is no point in trying to change opinions, you just get labeled. I like the people there for the most part so it is enjoyable to socialize. I just ignore the doctrine talk.

[oliver_denom]

AS for safe places in the church I think people want to much. You are not going to get people to do things that are uncomfortable for them just so you feel comfortable. It is not human nature. Why people keep thinking members care about the feelings of doubters I do not get.

It may be because the Mormon worldview includes everyone and everything. Maybe its difficult to get out of that mindset and remember that Mormonism is just one small piece of a bigger world. If, instead, it feels like Mormonism encompasses the world then I could see people saying, "I have not choice but to live in this giant Mormon world, so where's my space in it?" What they're failing to see is that it's not a giant Mormon world, all you have to do is walk down to the corner pub or library.

I imagine this is harder to do when your community is majority Mormon. That's tough. When the community is Mormon majority then they have the habit of sucking up all the atmosphere and taking over all the available real estate.

[Raylan Givens]

It may be because the Mormon worldview includes everyone and everything. Maybe its difficult to get out of that mindset and remember that Mormonism is just one small piece of a bigger world. If, instead, it feels like Mormonism encompasses the world then I could see people saying, "I have not choice but to live in this giant Mormon world, so where's my space in it?" What they're failing to see is that it's not a giant Mormon world, all you have to do is walk down to the corner pub or library.

I imagine this is harder to do when your community is majority Mormon. That's tough. When the community is Mormon majority then they have the habit of sucking up all the atmosphere and taking over all the available real estate.

The Church is so small and insignificant in the larger picture, beyond what even those of us who are in "left field" believe it is. My DW and I talked about this. It stopped her in her tracks when she really thought about how small the sphere of influence really is. As my kids getter closer to baptism, I hope this sticks in her brain.

[moksha]

My thought is that the safest place is anonymously on a friendly and supportive internet message board unless of course you break into the church after midnight and crawl into that space under the stage reserved for tables and folding chairs. You might have to rearrange them so that you fit. Once inside feel free to say what is on your mind. There will be no microphone so no worries that someone will turn off the sound right before your primal scream. Don't forget to dust the place down for fingerprints when you leave.

[redjay]

My Bishop got up last week and gave a talk which went something along the lines of

Christ said he will spew you out if you are luke warm

If you're not fully committed what are you doing here?

The church is either all true or all false, and I know that it's true

In the name of Jesus Amen

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I felt like a fish completely out of water

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

My Bishop got up last week and gave a talk which went something along the lines of

Christ said he will spew you out if you are luke warm

If you're not fully committed what are you doing here?

The church is either all true or all false, and I know that it's true

In the name of Jesus Amen

----------------------------------

I felt like a fish completely out of water

He's getting desperate and frustrated probably. I heard my bishop say things in frustration a few times that seemed to indicate a growing challenge of keeping members engaged and committed, although that could have been a natural part of the calling all along.

[deacon blues]

My Bishop got up last week and gave a talk which went something along the lines of

Christ said he will spew you out if you are luke warm

If you're not fully committed what are you doing here?

The church is either all true or all false, and I know that it's true

In the name of Jesus Amen

----------------------------------

I felt like a fish completely out of water

He's getting desperate and frustrated probably. I heard my bishop say things in frustration a few times that seemed to indicate a growing challenge of keeping members engaged and committed, although that could have been a natural part of the calling all along.

I believe this is the real issue for people like your bishop. The black/white world view is False. The Essays make this obvious to any person who uses reason rather than indoctrination to analyze the situation. But the top down leadership model is still mostly choosing the indoctrinated rather than the reasoning people, (mostly men, due to the priesthood paradigm) to call the shots at all levels. The church sees these indoctrinated people as the "salt of the earth/church" and caters to them at the expense of those who want to try to understand and deal with reality. If this "salt" continues to overwhelm the natural flavor (reality) of the LDS world view, I think they are going to become more like the fundamentalists they profess to abhor.