Elsie's Opels
Posted on 03/30/2012 9:22:37 PM PDT by Colofornian
OREM -- Online exploration of formerly taboo subjects is changing how Mormons talk about their faith, both officially and socially. What this means to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members was the subject of a UVU conference which launched on Thursday.
Joanna Brooks, an award-winning religious scholar and writer, gave the keynote address of the "Mormonism and the Internet" gathering on Thursday morning.
"One of our big challenges right now is that young people do have a lot of access to information about our history that is not discussed at home and at church," Brooks said. "That is a big frontier for us."
Historically, some subjects are simply not openly discussed within the church. But the Internet has made it difficult for families and official church literature to sidestep controversial elements of its history. As a result, both families and wards find themselves struggling with how to address issues for which there is no "official" church literature.
For most of history, little attention has been paid by the world to what LDS Church authorities have said in twice-yearly conferences. The digital age has changed that. Brooks cited the controversy over how Elder Boyd K. Packer in October 2010 said, while speaking on live television, that homosexuality is not an inborn "tendency." Within hours, Packer's statement was international news. And when the church published Packer's talk, the word "tendency" had been changed to "temptation," which again made news.
As another example, Brooks said that views about blacks that were once widely "taught from LDS pulpits" were discredited in an official church statement last month after national media, reporting on presidential candidate Mitt Romney, quoted a BYU professor.
Those examples represent a sea change for the church, considering that for decades, Mormon scholars were openly told by church authorities not to write about race or other fraught topics, she said. Scholars in the 1960s and 1970s who were exploring how black members came to be forbidden entrance into LDS temples were told the church would be harmed by any spotlight on the issue and scholars could lose their church standing. But today, in a reversal of that policy, the church put out an official statement about its history of race relations, and that statement discredited what had been taught from LDS pulpits for generations, she said.
Those examples show that the Internet "has eroded the church's ability to manage the LDS message," Brooks said. Women of color are likely to soon be the statistical majority of church members, and they have questions about the church's history of dealing both with issues of gender and race. While the church once routinely "deflected" any attempts to discuss such issues, such deflection is no longer possible, she said.
What is needed now is an acknowledgement of the obvious -- that there are difficult issues that church members grapple with, and simply not talking about those issues is no longer an option, she said. Members -- especially younger members -- are discussing formerly taboo subjects, and reading historical documents that parents and church authorities had traditionally been silent on.
"The digital era amplifies the pressure" to be more open and transparent about all aspects of Mormonism, Brooks said. "There is work to do, and if we don't do it, others will do it, and with far less care."
When thorny and heated issues arise, why not discuss them, she said. The challenge for both the church and families is finding a way to address those questions. Yet dealing with such issues openly is new to both the official church, and the culture.
"We are having our adolescence in the public eye, which is never pretty," Brooks said.
Church members in the audience said they were conflicted, feeling "love and respect and anger and frustration" at the way the church is discussed, and the way the church responds to controversy. The youth are "hearing one thing from their mothers, another thing from the pulpit, and another thing from their friends," said one audience member. "Where do we find something in between, a space to ask questions without feeling afraid?"
The blogosphere has become the answer, Brooks said. And unlike the highly managed way the church has been able to present its message in the past, in the blogosphere, that kind of public relations backfires or fails.
In a panel discussion after Brooks' keynote, BYU philosophy professor James Faulconer said sometimes the faithful are swayed by an anti-Mormon faction portraying the church as "duplicitous and hiding things. We have to construct a more resilient Mormonhood where we are not afraid of our own shadow."
Ardis Parshall, whom organizers introduced as an "epic Mormon blogger," said that too many young people, after becoming aware of a historic controversy, "want to go immediately to the limits" instead of seeking original documents, and examining their own family history.
"They accuse people of lying to them because they haven't read the basics, even though the basics have been there," Parshall said. When fraught subjects are approached with fairness and a level head, testimonies "don't get shaken unless you are really always walking on shaky ground."
Too many church members are looking for clean lines in the history of the church, said Faulconer.
"Real history, real lives, and real theology are incredibly messy," he said. "If we only look for things that reaffirm what we already know, I don't think we are being faithful." He suggested that members must become more comfortable "living in the questions" of the Mormon faith.
Mormons simply need to be more courageous in discussing fraught subjects, Brooks said.
"Let's examine our fear of exposure in the light of day," she said. "If I find out something terrible, it may not change who I am. I might be fine. We need to foster places where we can be wrong and it is not a character flaw. It's not shameful if we address it with humility and acknowledge the human-ness of this process."
The "Mormonism and the Internet" conference continues Friday. For information, visit tinyurl.com/uvumormon.
Oh, my...Elder Uchdorf .. I’ve hurt myself twice falling out of this chair. I hope you’re satisfied...
Yep. This is true.
I have often wondered why they bothered to keep these damning documents and artifacts in a vault. Why not just destroy all of them, from the moment they are acquired?
You'd have to ask the PRESENT Living Prophet® of The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints, Thomas Monson - not me; just one of a mere handful of those posting things about MORMONism that SLC wishes would NEVER show up; ANYWHERE!
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Office of First President & Living Prophet November 1st, 2011 The message for this month is -
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Elsie's Opels
Lots of dialogue among (mostly) younger Mormons who are seriously examining and challenging LDS official doctrine and history.
No statistics to cite, but the impression I get from them is similarly that many more ex-Mormons gravitate to atheism/agnosticism/deism than to a conventional, trinitarian church.
Well, we don't only have to look @ Mormonism to conclude that. The same has been quite true for centuries with Judaism.
I think with Mormons, and other cultists, there still is a higher eventual rebound.
Unlike Judaism, ya gotta understand a certain dynamic here. These Mormons, becoming ex-Mormons, upon finding out how unfaithful (belief-wise; deception-wise) the founders & leaders of Mormonism were & are...feel betrayed...
It's quite comparable to being betrayed by an unfaithful, deceptive lover. Trust goes away. Relational security in a given god goes away.
Does that mean that all never "marry" again? (Of course not).
But like seriously jilted lovers, you don't see a lot of them rushing into a "new relationship."
They have to work thru realizing that not all out there are counterfeits...not all out there are "slick" con men.
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