When the local Mormon Stake President came to the door, I was half-hoping it was Carolyn, wanting to share a glass of Layer Cake Shiraz (that she had recommended) while our wives were at paddling practice. The kids were wrapping up dinner and Isaac and I were sitting on the couches enjoying warm conversation and cold beers.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Dr. Clayton. He delivered GameBoy over a decade and a half ago. He told a group of us LDS college students of his struggle with doubt during his med school days. He had always been kindly and soft-spoken.
He was standing outside in his jeans and Stanford sweatshirt. I invited him in, and CatGirl immediately left the room. We spent half an hour in pleasant conversation, catching up, making small talk with Isaac and GameBoy.
Finally, he got ready to leave, and asked if I could step outside for a moment. I don’t remember the exact words and sequence, but I’ll try to get this down the best I can. He told me of his long friendship with me. I told him, sincerely, of the fondness I had for him, but reminded him as long as he was still the official local representative of the church, that that impacted our relationship.
He then informed me that I had written something on my blog about the temple (this was as specific as he got) that was offensive to the sanctity of the temple and that I would be receiving an invitation to a council because my mishandling of these sacred things was not in keeping with the oaths I made and my position as a member of the LDS Church. (Yes, I’m still on the books.)
At this point, I said two things:
1. That the things he found sacred I saw as manipulative, coercive, and destructive to many people. I told him that I respected his experience, but that I would resist any attempt to censor the expression of those of us who found that it was a painful, problematic experience. (We own our temple experiences as much as any current or former Mormon, and the Church has no right to silence us.)
2. That I make it my policy to blog any interaction I have with Church officials. I told them that I had overcome much of my anger, and had recently wound down much of my criticism of the Church (with the exception of its Prop 8 involvement), but that if they wanted to pursue this, I would document the whole process publicly. My motivation here is primarily one of openness. I’m laying all of my cards on the table (Dr. Clayton is perhaps extending the same courtesy to me, with his visit).
This pretty much ended our conversation. He wished me and my family the best, and I saw him off.
I came inside and told Isaac, “I think I’m getting ex’d.” CatGirl, who was standing in the hallway, broke into a big smile and said, “Isn’t that what you wanted anyway?” We then went off to get ice cream (our original plan for the evening, not in celebration).
So, many of you may wonder how I feel about this.
- This is the first time I’ve stood toe-to-toe with a Mormon leader and felt like his complete equal in every way. It’s liberating to not feel beholden to Church authority and priesthood power.
- It was nice to have Isaac, of all my friends, to process this afterwards. He’s been close enough to the Church to see both the good and the damage it does, but distant enough to provide objective support.
- I asked Isaac to help me make sure my motives are pure. At this point, I don’t feel angry or vindictive. I do feel a responsibility to fight censorship, and to speak out for all of us who have suffered under the Church. I explained to Isaac, “I started Mind on Fire as a cry out to others, when I felt isolated, and then it grew into a community that could embrace others who experienced similar anguish and marginalization.” I still feel that. I’m amazed at the response I got withing minutes of posting my first tweet. I am definitely not alone. Thank you. And I don’t want to abandon any of you.
- That said, I do feel bad for everyone who is struggling and angry on my behalf, especially Jana. The Church may intend to cut me off, but they may lose Jana in the bargain.
- Finally, I’m proud of my kids. GameBoy is bemused by the turn of events, and CatGirl is positively delighted.
Anyhow, the ball’s in the Church’s court, so to speak. I’m not sure what to expect at this point–I guess a letter in the mail later this week, if the Stake Presidency and the Stake High Council have already made up their minds. Maybe they’ll decide it’s not worth the hassle and will let me (relatively) quietly move on.
I’m ready for whatever. Bring it on.
152 responses so far ↓
1 Melissa // Jun 10, 2009 at 10:43 pm
John, I’ve never commented on your blog posts before, but I have to tell you how proud I am to be your friend. It’s difficult to leave something that has been such a part of your life, and to leave it not out of anger or fear, but out of a desire to embrace difference, to believe in the greatness of the world without filters, and to, ultimately, leave it with love.
2 Gregory Lawrence // Jun 10, 2009 at 11:07 pm
I’m just going to echo Melissa, and add: you really are an inspiration, John. Thank you for your courage in sharing your journey.
3 Jason B. // Jun 11, 2009 at 12:10 am
Hi John. This is Jason, I was a friend of Jana’s way-way-way back in high school. We don’t know each other but I was compelled to post none-the-less. I applaud your decision to stand up for what you believe and follow your heart. Bravo. I know how difficult it can be to confront someone that has obviously meant a great deal to you. But you have to stand by your morals and embrace your beliefs. It appears to me that the decision to ex-communicate you might be a bit of a hasty decision. However, I think it’s best to remember that in any relationship, whether it be with the one you love, a friend, and even a church, we sometimes outgrow the other half and are forced to consider going our separate ways. My family will keep you, Jana and the kids in our prayers. And please, don’t stop sharing your thoughts with us. Experience, knowledge and love are the greatest gifts we have to share.
4 JohnW // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:27 am
Wow.
I appreciate the honesty and openness you pursue this interaction with, as well as the introspection you have about your motivations.
“You violated your oaths of secrecy” puts the LDS church in the heady company of the Scientologists.
5 Hellmut // Jun 11, 2009 at 3:02 am
Pleased to meet you, John. I wish you lots of luck. It is unfortunate that the LDS Church is so authoritarian. I wish, we would have preserved more of our congregationalist heritage instead of the super-Catholic obsession with control and authority.
I was wondering if you would be able, please, to link your blog entry about the temple.
6 Mike // Jun 11, 2009 at 3:42 am
As I understand it, the normal protocol is for the letter notifying you of a ‘court’ is hand-delivered by two men. At least, that’s how it was handled in the cases I know of. The fact that he came to talk to you personally suggests that he feels for you and apparently values you.
Good luck with everything. FWIW, I value your and Jana’s writing about church.
7 aerin // Jun 11, 2009 at 5:35 am
Best of luck to you. Can’t help but think of Galileo whenever I hear about this type of thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo
8 Caroline // Jun 11, 2009 at 5:43 am
John,
I’m upset by this. What good does the SP possibly think will come from excommunicating you?
I guess I’m a believer in letting people exit Mormonism on their own terms. I was telling Mike last night that I think of it in terms of this analogy: it’s one thing if an individual decides to cut herself off from her family because she disagrees with their beliefs, actions, etc. It’s another if the family gets together and decides to disown the individual and kick her out of the family. That second scenario seems so violent and hurtful to me.
My best to you.
9 Elaine // Jun 11, 2009 at 6:47 am
John…I am proud and honored to call you and Jana my friends, and I stand in support of you in this.
I applaud your willingness to document it publicly. It is important for such actions by the LDS church to be held up to public scrutiny.
I, too, am still “on the books”. I’ve been hesitant to resign because of my feeling that to do so feeds the church’s feeling that they have the power to make people ask permission, even to leave the church. I very well might have to rethink that position in light of their continuing attempts to censor what members may say about their experience in the church.
Why do I feel like I should close this comment with this quote? “Power to the people. Power to the people, right on.” It seems sort of frivolous on the one hand, but it also seems appropriate in light of the fact that the LDS church seems bent on taking all the power it can away from its members, including the power of the individual to speak his or her mind publicly.
Elaine
10 Doe // Jun 11, 2009 at 7:09 am
I was sitting in a seminar on “Happiness” when I got your text.
I nearly fell off my chair. As I just told Jana, at first I was frightened for you; but now I’m not sure why. You will always be my hero.
11 Bored in Vernal // Jun 11, 2009 at 8:42 am
Love you.
I am writing a poem.
12 G // Jun 11, 2009 at 8:51 am
Catgirl’s response totally lightened the impact of this for me. good for her!
that said, I know how painful this is for jana, my thoughts will be with all of you, but especially her during this.
BTW, what your wrote here: “This is the first time I’ve stood toe-to-toe with a Mormon leader and felt like his complete equal in every way” that makes me so happy john. well done.
And let me express again how glad I am to be your friend.
13 William Shunn // Jun 11, 2009 at 9:32 am
That is fantastic, John! I only hope I show as much coolness, courage, and forthrightness when that moment comes for me.
14 EmilyCC // Jun 11, 2009 at 9:46 am
I’m so sorry to hear this, John. I appreciate your honesty and humility in sharing your experiences. I think that so many benefit from them.
Keeping you and your family in my thoughts.
15 Sean // Jun 11, 2009 at 9:50 am
John, I am so excited and jubilant over this. I hope this is a positive experience for you.
16 Holly // Jun 11, 2009 at 9:54 am
congratulations!
Are you going to go the church court?
17 Davis // Jun 11, 2009 at 9:56 am
Please do not take this question negatively. I do not intend it to be so. Your choice to distance yourself from the Church is your own, and I in no way intend to be judgmental.
My question is pertinent in this setting, but could also be in a million other instances. It has to do with how you view the fact that you effectively gave your word that you would keep certain things private when you went through the temple. It appears you clearly no longer intend to keep those things private. How do you reconcile this with the fact that you are clearly an honorable person, and I feel that if you gave me your word about a private matter in my life, I could trust you to keep it.
It is much the same as possessing trade secrets for a particular company, and then having a falling out with management. Even though there is disagreement, the honorable (an most likely legal) thing to do is to keep the secrets you hold.
I have wanted to ask this question to others in your situation, but feel that you are perhaps a person that may actually give me a real answer.
The idea that a person is being lied to or mislead or coerced to give their word is a possible answer, but on a localized level, the individuals you went through the temple with at the time truly believed what was going on, and in no way were trying to lie to you or coerce you.
I guess in some ways it could be viewed as a reporter being given access to some type of secret issue by giving his word that he would not publish it, and then years later actually writing about it. This is a bit more complex obviously because of the emotion involved, but I think you get what I am asking.
Do you feel that you have broken your word by being so public about things you promised to keep as personal experiences? If you feel that you have, is it because breaking your word in this case is in the greater good than maintaining your reputation? If you do not feel you have, I would be interested in why not.
Another instance to do a thought experiment on:
If you and I were close friends, and I entrusted you with a secret about my life, how secure would it be? If later in life, I drastically offended you and you realized that I wasn’t who you thought I was (but that I had never tried to fool, trick or deceive you about who I was – you just interpreted me incompletely) would my secret still be safe with you?
I have run up against this kind of conflict far too many times in my life. I am interested in your feelings on this.
18 Davis // Jun 11, 2009 at 10:04 am
Let me add one more thing in explanation. Before I was born, my father was a member of a Masonic Lodge. I have no recollection of him ever participating in any events with the Masons. He distanced himself from them long before I was aware that he was ever even a member.
Multiple times in my life I have asked him questions about the Masons. He answers them openly and clearly, unless it is a question about some of their secret or initiatory practices. Those questions he will never answer. He gave his word he would not discuss them, and he intends to keep his word. Regardless of the fact that he no longer associates with the Masons.
As a young man I thought that odd. I am beginning to respect his stance more and more as I grow older.
Just a bit of background so you can understand my question a bit more.
19 Mossie // Jun 11, 2009 at 10:14 am
Taking our own paths into, out of, through LDS culture, affiliation, and identity can be quite a ride.
However we each navigate our journeys, feeling empowered and whole seems like an excellent standard for healthfulness.
Blessings to you and yours.
20 William Shunn // Jun 11, 2009 at 10:14 am
Davis, I know your question is not directed to me, but having been in the same position as John in discussing temple ceremonies, I would submit that keeping personal confidences and keeping pledges to an institution are two different things. An institution has the potential to affect millions of lives, and if you feel that you or other people could be harmed by the secrets it keeps, isn’t it more honorable to break the oath and try to prevent suffering? It’s analogous to whistleblowers breaking NDAs to turn their companies in for shady and/or harmful business practices.
In any event, the oaths one swears in an LDS temple are not sworn to the church or to any member of the church. They are sworn to God. Since I don’t believe God exists, that pretty much means I swore an oath to an imaginary being. How much force should that really hold? The only thing you can really weigh is the suffering or anguish of people who still believe in the oaths versus that of the people who might get sucked in and thereby harmed.
Another important factor for me was the fact that the oaths are never explained to you before you are deep into the temple ceremony and the necessity of agreeing to them is put to you in front of dozens of already-oathed members of your family and church community. The pressure to comply with room for sufficient thought in that situation is intense. I consider it a coercive environment. Again I ask, what is the value of an oath extracted under those conditions? One is never given an opportunity to evaluate the ceremony before going into it, which makes a mockery of informed consent and individual agency and accountability.
Those are the reasons why I decided to break my oaths.
21 DWJ // Jun 11, 2009 at 10:27 am
I just want to echo what Davis has said, as I am also very curious with what you have to say. I am an active Mormon, and I come in the same tolerant spirit as Davis.
I also am curious about your comments regarding censorship. Is “censorship” really the accurate term? Moreover, does your disciplinary hearing really have to do with censorship per se? I guess I don’t see how the fallout that comes with the revealing of confidential information can be considered censorship. Perhaps Davis’ analogy to confidential corporate information is helpful here. Moreover, the Mormon church leadership certainly realizes that everything sacred about the temple is available on the Internet.
Again, just honestly curious about how you feel about this…
22 DWJ // Jun 11, 2009 at 10:34 am
William Shunn,
I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think you are quite accurate in saying the oaths are to God only. As a believing Mormon, I don’t want to say more than this, but I will say that I believe the oaths are also made to the authorized authorities of the temple ordinances, and certainly there is an implication that you are making a promise to the church and its members. Certainly, there is the implication that in violating this oath you are breaking trust with everyone who has made the oath. Please don’t see this comment as me disagreeing with what you’ve done, I just want to say that many people see it differently than just between you and God.
23 DWJ // Jun 11, 2009 at 10:38 am
Sorry one last thing to add from my last comment to William Shunn…
So, one could argue that you are conflating too much the difference between “institution” and the “personal.” If you were a close family member of mine, I would see what you are doing as breaking trust with me, not just the Church as a depersonalized entity. If you were my spouse, I would feel this way all the more strongly.
24 The Other Brother Jones // Jun 11, 2009 at 10:40 am
I have a couple of comments sort of in the same spirit as Davis.
It sounds like you expect that the decision ot excommunicate you is already done. My understanding is that this is not the cae. The court will provide an opportunity for you to say your peice and you may have others on your side of the debate. I have never been involved in a church court so I don’t really know. I hope you will go and report on exactly what the process is.
Also, is it possible that you could look at this form another angle? From the church’s (possible) position you have decided not to live up to some of the expectations of a menber. Separating formt he church is a kind way of releasing you from those obligations.
Anyway, I am curious how the blog entry came to light. I would not expect that they had someone reading your every word and waiting or an opportunity to strike.
thanks
25 Elise // Jun 11, 2009 at 11:01 am
That was a very interesting re-count of your experience. Thanks for sharing it with us. Interesting, when you mentioned you stood toe-to-toe and felt equal, my immediate thought was that I would not feel equal in the same situation. I think I would let it intimidate me. That was a sad realization for me, but I have never thought about it that way, specifically, before. Your courage is, in deed, inspiring.
26 Hellmut // Jun 11, 2009 at 11:06 am
Good questions, Davis. I can neither speak for John nor have I yet discussed the temple ceremonies in public.
At the time, I was deeply troubled by the endowment ceremony, not so much about the punishments, but about the content of the commitments.
I was totally surprised. In my opinion, the endowment commitments contradict the baptismal covenants and the Sermon on the Mount.
I was so blindsided that I did not know what to make of it for decades. The fact that you are not allowed to talk about these matters openly is not helpful either.
In hindsight, I have to say that as a committed Christian, I feel disrespected by the way the Brethren obtained my commitment. There never was the chance to contemplate my obligations.
Therefore, one cannot reasonably hold anyone to the temple covenants. Can you relate to that?
27 Elisabeth Calvert Smith // Jun 11, 2009 at 11:15 am
Hi, John –
I watched your podcast a few weeks ago, and thought it was respectful and sincere. Church members would absolutely benefit from a frank, open discussion about the temple liturgy and temple covenants _before_ they find themselves standing in a darkened room filled with people.
I’ve never understood why members of the Church are prohibited from discuss the temple freely before entering the temple – especially given the significance of the covenants they are expected to make there.
It seems to me that the Church asks its members to keep the temple liturgy and covenants secret in order to protect the Church from having to answer difficult questions. Why would the temple covenants be any less valid if made publicly in, say, Sacrament Meeting instead of while wearing white robes and green sashes?
Regardless, my love and support are with you and your family. Keep us posted, and I hope everything goes well.
28 JohnR // Jun 11, 2009 at 11:26 am
Whoa! A little overwhelmed by the response…
To everyone who has expressed support: thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m honored, too, to call many of you my friends. You not only make this easier, several of you have made this possible through the positive examples you set.
I can only imagine that this would be so much harder without a caring community. I hope that I can be there for you as well.
Melissa (#1): I have tremendous respect for you, so this means a lot. Thank you.
Jason (#3): Welcome! And life has taught me that we do indeed need to let our loved ones grow and change.
Helmutt (#5): I’m going to try to post the link in a new post tonight.
Caroline (#8): I think I can actually understand the SP’s viewpoint on this one. He’s more concerned with the safety of the bulk/core of the flock, not a few of us on the fringes.
Davis and DWJ, I’m going to defer to William Shunn’s response (#20). I mentally drew up my response when I first saw Davis’ question (#17), and then William touched on each point I wanted to address, probably much more eloquently than I could’ve handled it. I agree with his comment 100%.
I do feel strongly that the oaths are part of a pattern of coercion and abuse of power by the Church. Ultimately, this may be the key point that I suspect I’ll be ex’d for: I believe the contract was done under coercion and under false pretenses, and that I have a moral obligation to speak openly about the potential of the temple institution to harm people.
Here’s a parallel: let’s say I had a consensual sexual relationship with a much older and caring adult teacher while I was, say, thirteen. S/he swore me to secrecy, and out of affection, I complied. I grow up and realize that the relationship was wrong and that the same teacher was still sleeping with their students. Would I be morally bound by my promise to secrecy or by the need to protect potential victims from harm.
I don’t want to turn this thread into a debate about the harm the temple causes: you both asked to understand my reasoning. There you go.
Ironically, now that I’m a Quaker, I have a problem with oaths in general. I’m supposed to value truth above oaths and promises.
29 aerin // Jun 11, 2009 at 11:33 am
#28 – so John it may have nothing to do with the temple and instead have to do with being a formal member of another congregation?
30 JohnR // Jun 11, 2009 at 11:43 am
TOBJ (#24): My blog is known to local stake and ward members. I can imagine someone was troubled by a recent post and passed it on up. Also, I’m not sure I see the Church being charitable to me so much as protecting its boundaries. I understand its need to do that. Ironically, I have more power to criticize the Church as a disaffected member than as someone who was excommunicated. I think we both recognize this.
Helmutt (#26): Good point about the contradictions. I think that it’s also difficult to reconcile with statements in the Book of Mormon about oaths and secret societies.
ECS (#27): I think you pinpointed the post that brought up this Church action. I’ll try to link to it later today. Thanks for that and for the support.
One final point on oaths, then my lunch break is over!:
I find the weight that the Church and its members give to oaths very very troubling. Oaths, as they are used in the Church are particularly coercive because the only one questioned is the oath-breaker; there is really no opportunity within the Church to suggest that God, Angels and the Church officials were perhaps the first to breach the sacred contract?
Finally, an overemphasis on the direness of oaths increases the danger that Church leaders and members will miss other human and moral issues.
Okay, I’m done with oaths for now.
31 JohnR // Jun 11, 2009 at 11:44 am
Aerin (#29): I’m not a formal member (yet), though Jana is now. So yes, this is specifically about something I said about the temple on my blog, though the SP was non-specific.
32 aerin // Jun 11, 2009 at 11:54 am
#31 John – I was just referring to the policy (which isn’t public from my understanding) that people can be excommunicated for joining another church. This information isn’t readily available to members, however.
33 DWJ // Jun 11, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I think I understand what you’re saying in your response. But in all due respect, this example strikes me as a false analogy. You were an adult when you made your temple covenants. In addition, there is the question in what is being communicated in revealing the secret. Revealing your temple oaths is not the same as turning in a sex offender, in that you are not turning anyone or anything in.
I’m still curious if you have anything to say about what I said concerning censorship. I understand if you don’t have time to answer.
34 Cobwebs // Jun 11, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Woo-hoo! Congratulations on getting the boot! It’s wonderful that you’re feeling empowered by this.
@Davis – I can’t answer for John, but I see a difference between keeping trade secrets and keeping the “secrets” of a religion. A company could be harmed in measurable ways if their trade secrets were revealed, as it might allow competitors to copy their products. Revealing a religion’s secrets does…what? Allows others to point and laugh? I don’t view that as necessarily a bad thing.
@Elaine – You don’t have to feel as though you’re asking for permission to leave. I initially just asked the missionaries and home teachers to stop coming around, and they told me that as long as I was on the books they were duty-bound to pester me. So I wrote to the church and told them they could excommunicate me or face a harassment lawsuit, their choice. I got an official “baptism fail” letter not long after.
35 xJane // Jun 11, 2009 at 1:00 pm
John—you have, of course, my support, love, and awe. I will admit that CatGirl’s response flitted briefly across my mind as well when you told me; I thought of the post you did about whether or not to remove yourself from their List. That decision may be made for you. My other major response was levity. I’m trying to figure out what you said recently that incensed them so! I think you should print off a copy of every blog post or comment you made that was critical of the Church, the Faith, the Doctrine, or Other Capitalized Things. Maybe bind it nicely; and have enough copies that each of the Council has their own. Present it to them when you are called before them and ask which one was over the line. Then engage them on why that one was worse than all the others.
I’m so glad that you’re at a point where you feel equal to Church Authority. But, of course, you’re not. You are their better in every way. This is proven by the attitude with which you are facing this.
——
DWJ—I’d like to add my few cents to underscore the fact that the point that John is making is that there is a huge difference in power between the parties of the promise in question (in his case, between him and God/The Church; in the case of the hypothetical, between the child and the adult). This difference in power translates to a coerced promise. And a coerced promise is none at all.
36 Brooke // Jun 11, 2009 at 1:02 pm
John, my thoughts are with you and Jana. I admire how you are handling this and hope for the best. I was especially impressed by your equal footing comment. How liberating to be at that point in your journey. Best wishes.
37 Davis // Jun 11, 2009 at 1:07 pm
John,
Thank you for your reply. The comment:
“It’s analogous to whistleblowers breaking NDAs to turn their companies in for shady and/or harmful business practices.”
Is not valid. Whistle blowers are not breaking any NDA when they turn their company in. An NDA cannot force someone to break a contract, break the law or to tolerate law breaking. If there is no law or contract being broken, then there is no whistle to blow.
William Shunn’s comment of:
“isn’t it more honorable to break the oath and try to prevent suffering?”
is a reasonable answer. In this case he obviously feels that his word and reputation are not as important as the help he is trying to provide.
While I understand your analogy, it is as DWJ said – somewhat flawed.
If you changed your age to 18. It would be much more analogous. People are adults when they go to the temple. They know that if they decide to go, they will be asked to commit to difficult things. Sometimes people might not really think about what they are about to do, but they are still adults.
If you were 18 and had a secret sexual relationship, would you publicize it years later once you realized you didn’t care for it?
I admit for some people there could be an element of coercion/peer pressure when first attending the temple. The question you have to ask yourself is, was it coercion every other time you went? You still make the same promises each time.
It might be coercion when someone goes to a strip club with co-workers because he thinks his job might be in danger. Is it still coercion when he goes back over and over again all by himself?
I appreciate your reply. It gives me much to ponder.
38 JohnW // Jun 11, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Davis (#37)
That’s an interesting point. You’re asking if it’s possible to be in a coercive power-imbalanced relationship at 18? I think it still is.
I read your original question where you stated that you in no way intend to be judgemental. I need to tell you that everything you’re writing screams to me of judgment. Of wanting to engage in a legalistic debate that ends with someone saying, “Davis, you’ve convinced me that I’ve compromised my honor and ethics in this.”
I’ll put that aside.
The parallel that you draw is between temple confidentiality and personal confidentiality. Can you explain a situation of asking someone to keep a personal confidence that continues the parallel with temple oaths? I’m assuming that you’re a fairly honorable person yourself and that it hasn’t occurred to you that someone (not you) could ask you to keep a personal confidence that in retrospect you decided was a coercive and harmful request that you no longer felt bound by. Clearly you don’t see yourself making such a request. But other people might make that kind of request.
39 DWJ // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Oh boy. The intolerant card has been played. And not well, if you ask me. The fact that Davis disagrees with you–and of course he will–does not imply what you are saying here, in my opinion.
40 xJane // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Davis,
I’d like to add to JohnW’s response and provide you with this hypothetical: a psychiatrist receives information from a patient that is governed by patient-client privilege but which, if made public, would prevent people from being harmed.
The choice to break privilege for the sake of the harm that would be caused or to allow the harm but keep privilege is up to the individual psychiatrist. The pros and cons of either action must be weighed by the individual psychiatrist. The decision, whichever it ends up being, must be lived with every day by the individual psychiatrist.
John has made his choice and has decided to break his vows and prevent future harm. You have made your choice and have decided to keep your vows and allow the harm to continue (maybe to work to lessen the harm). Whatever I may think of either your choice or John’s, it has been your (and John’s) choice to make.
41 JohnW // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:04 pm
DWJ (#39)
*shrug* I’m not playing a card game, I’m expressing the way I feel.
42 DWJ // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:06 pm
And I’m challenging whether the origin of your feeling is really from Davis’ comment. Why does it “scream of judgment”?
43 xJane // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Davis, JohnW, and DWJ—
I’d like to step in and moderate for a moment. All of us are placing value judgments on the comments that people are leaving here. We each have different values and are struggling to be tolerant of each others’. In seeking discourse, we will be judgmental, we will be prejudicial, we will be offended. Let’s try not to let any of that come through too terribly in our comments to each other. And, when it does in someone else’s comment, let us not dwell on it.
44 Equality // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:12 pm
#33 and #37,
I think you both miss the point. The point is this: the temple “oaths” are made under duress. There is a gross imbalance of power between the church and the member. The entire context in which the oaths are made must be examined to determine whether the promises to keep the signs, names, and tokens secret (and these are the only things that members swear to keep secret) are entitled to an expectation on the part of the church that they will be kept.
In law, a contract made under duress, in the same sort of circumstance in which temple oaths are administered, would be deemed void ab initio. Likewise, members who take the secrecy oaths are under no moral obligation to keep them.
The church, of course, being a private (and, as it has shown time and again, authoritarian, controlling, and vindictive) institution, can choose to excommunicate anyone it wishes for any reason, I suppose. It’s just not very, well, Christlike, now is it?
45 DWJ // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:15 pm
You can’t honestly expect to have an actual conversation with an active Latter-day Saint if you speak this way. Not to question that you feel this way, but are you really trying to engage me in conversation with this?
46 JohnW // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:20 pm
DWJ (#42)
Implies that John is breaking his word and blemishing his reputation:
Implies that coercion is something that should immediately recognized, ignoring the possibility that it might have taken years to figure out:
Implies that John’s status was based on offense. Implies that the church never tried to fool, trick or deceive him but that John’s understanding and perception was incomplete:
47 Thomas Watson // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:23 pm
@Davis and answering for myself for the fun of it.
“Do you feel that you have broken your word by being so public about things you promised to keep as personal experiences?”
I completely understand the sacred and secret sentiments surrounding what happens inside an LDS temple.
Having been a temple worker, I absolutely get it.
But, IMHO, I feel you’re comparing apples and donkeys here.
It’s one thing to keep a personal secret, or sign an NDA. That happens with typically only a handful of individuals, a room full of executives and engineers, or a really good friend, family member, or spouse/ex-spouse.
Mormon temple practices, on the other hand, are expected to be believed and practiced by every single Mormon, and accepted by every dead person by proxy in the afterlife.
In fact, Mormons believe that every person on the planet should eventually come to know what happens inside their temples, otherwise, they won’t live with their Heavenly Father.
Thus, they have mass-distributed temple practices performed with millions of Mormons all over the world from more than 100 temples – practices that every Mormon is expected to participate in and embrace.
Not every person who works for a company like Coca Cola is expected to learn and keep secret the formula for their soft drinks.
Coca Cola doesn’t have more than 100 laboratories where they mass-distribute their formulas to millions of employees as a requirement to keep their jobs.
But suppose they did. And a good number of folks realized that there were some really unhealthy things in those formulas that could potentially harm the employees, and every person who drank the cola.
The whole thing comes across as comparing apples to donkeys.
48 Equality // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:28 pm
“You can’t honestly expect to have an actual conversation with an active Latter-day Saint if you speak this way. Not to question that you feel this way, but are you really trying to engage me in conversation with this?”
Seems to have worked, no?
And I thought I was being on my best behavior. Sometimes, it’s hard for me to remember what it’s like in the Mormon Bubble, ever since I embraced reality-based living a couple years ago.
49 John // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:31 pm
K, folks, I’m going to step in for a sec:
I really appreciate JohnW’s and Equality’s jumping in, and DWJ and Davis’ attempts to understand. In the interest of maintaining a productive thread/discussion, I am going to encourage you all to do the following:
- DWJ, JohnW has a point–if you’re seeking to understand my position, then pointing weaknesses or faults in my descriptions, reasons or analogies is not helpful, and moves us into legalistic/rational debate. That said, I know what the tone can get like based on other experiences, and I appreciate the respect you’ve tried to show here.
- JohnW and others, let’s avoid detailed, tit-for-tat responses to comments.
- Everyone, let’s focus on relating and affirming personal experience.
I’m encouraging this because a) I don’t have time to moderate a heated discussion (and don’t want to shut comments down), and b) I think the conversation will be more productive. You really all are behaving well.
I just want to head off things before they get too crazy. Thanks!
50 DWJ // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:37 pm
JohnW (46)
Well, in a technical (non-judgmental) sense you are breaking your word, right? Otherwise, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. And certainly your reputation has been “blemished” among certain people, I imagine (which I can say without saying you are to blame for this).
51 Equality // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Sorry for getting so snarky. I’ll be good from now on. I swear (with my right arm to the square and head bowed and everything).
52 Elissa Minor Rust // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:41 pm
John,
Not much to add except I want you to know that I admire your courage. I admire that you are willing and wanting to speak publicly about the temple. I have not been so brave, and I don’t know if I could face them in a court if asked.
But it’s something that needs to be told. I went in as a scared 20 year old girl (yes, GIRL, with very limited world experience) and by the time I was promising to keep anything secret I was so overwhelmed I wanted to run screaming. How does one run screaming when your fiance is smiling at you from across the aisle, and every single family member is there, pushing you forward?
My 9 year old likes to say, “If I tell you a secret, do you promise never to tell anyone, ever?” My answer is always: “That depends on the secret.” The temple rites feel as if we are being asked to make a promise of secrecy before we have any clue what we are promising and what we have gotten ourselves into. By the time you’ve walked into the room and donned the funny clothes, there’s no way you can turn around and tell everyone there, “You know what? On second thought, this is sort of creepy. Where’s the exit?” This was what I had been prepared to do my whole life, what I had been expected to do from the time I was born.
Wow. That was more than I expected to type. Sorry.
You have a strong community supporting you, John. Don’t forget it.
53 DWJ // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Equality has confirmed that I can’t chime in without being ridiculed. So this is my last comment. Too bad. It’s rare that you have a respectful conversation going between the two sides. I did my best.
54 Matt Thurston // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:43 pm
“Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in. ”
–Michael Corleone
Nothing like a little controversy around Mind on Fire to bring back memories of the good old (bad?) days…
Good luck, John. As usual, keep singing, er writing your life…
“Others sang your life
But now is a chance to shine
And have the pleasure of
Saying what you mean
Have the pleasure of
Meaning what you sing
Oh, make no mistake my friend
All of this will end
So sing it now (sing your life)”
–Morrissey
55 JohnW // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:54 pm
DWJ (#52)
I’m sorry if I had any part in you feeling offended.
56 Thomas Watson // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Good point.
From 38: “The parallel that you draw is between temple confidentiality and personal confidentiality. Can you explain a situation of asking someone to keep a personal confidence that continues the parallel with temple oaths?”
Right. Let’s compare apples with apples and donkeys with donkeys.
To echo Equality, the LDS church has every right to excommunicate you, John. That’s just the nature of the beast. You’ve violated a church policy, and the consequence in today’s LDS environment is the probability of excommunication.
You do have the option to simply resign your membership and avoid excommunication. The CHI informs bishops and stake presidents to simply process your resignation without the fuss of excommunication.
Or, if you’re feeling especially fun and excited, you could actually go through with the silly process of excommunication.
Love and positive vibes.
57 The Other Brother Jones // Jun 11, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Quick response to Aerin #32
I remember a section of the CHI saying specifically that just joining another church is NOT grounds for excommunication. Of course the CHI is not readily available, but I think the policy is clear.
58 Davis // Jun 11, 2009 at 4:01 pm
First of all, if I sounded judgmental, that was not the intent. Many of my comments have been used out of context and incorrectly in the last few hours. Several people have supposedly quoted what I said referring to John, when in fact I was referring to other posts on this thread. Many of the comments are no longer relevant to my original posts.
I asked originally to get a feel for John’s mind set around his decision. Please correct me if I am wrong John, but I have the feeling that you would say that most of your Temple/Mormon experience was accompanied by an underlying sense of coercion. If that is the case, your reply’s are valid and I can understand them.
In the end, I suppose this “coercion” people seem to feel is why I asked originally. I just don’t feel it. It confuses me quite often when I hear of people doing things or living lives because of peer pressure – for good or for bad. That is just not in my nature.
Either way, I appreciate your candor John, I also deeply appreciate your ability to discuss an issue without the name calling and insults that occasionally fly around the internet.
59 Big Hos // Jun 11, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I just found your blog and I really like it! Probably going to be doing a bunch of reading here tonight. I’m glad that felt good handling your situation so well.
As a former member who has publicly talked about the temple ceremonies, here is my reasoning:
1. I made a covenant/two-way promise/contract/insert your own synonym with god in the temple. It was not an agreement with a church or a social contract with family members and friends. (Some might argue that the fourth covenant to dedicate all my worldly means to the church was not to god, but I was making a covenant with god to dedicate that to the church.)
2. I found out that god is an imaginary being.
3. I am not obligated to keep agreements with imaginary beings.
Pretty simple.
Now if someone doesn’t except my axiom in 1. and posits that my contract was indeed with the church and community, I still think I am not breaking my word because:
1. Lack of full disclosure would void the covenants. (If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have made those covenants)
2. The benefits claimed to be provided by the church/god/opposite party in the contract are and will never be provided to me as a supernatural power to do so does not exist, hence voiding the contract.
Now going even a step beyond this and granting preposition that divulging temple secrets is breaking my word and dishonest, I feel it would be the moral and ethical choice to do it anyways.
1. I think that the temple ceremonies exploit people.
2. In my opinion, the duty alert others to possible dangers outweighs my moral obligation to keep my word.
Obviously I feel it would be the lesser of two evils.
60 Davis // Jun 11, 2009 at 4:04 pm
P.S.
For future reference. The current CHI does say that officially becoming a member of another church could possibly be seen as a form of apostasy and could be grounds for church discipline. (I of course am paraphrasing)
61 Fully Caffeinated // Jun 11, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I just wanted to offer my support. And also to tell you, I hope whatever the end results are that they are what is best for you and your family.
I’d also like people to ponder… If you are asked to take an oath before you know what you are taking an oath for, should you be held to that oath if you find the ultimate truth offered is really smoke and mirrors?
62 Richard // Jun 11, 2009 at 4:10 pm
The Other Brother Jones:
You are reading from an outdated version of the CHI. The 2006 version is very clear that a disciplinary council must be held should a person join another religion.
(page 110 2006 CHI)
“A disciplinary council must be held when evidence suggests that a member may have committed any of the following transgressions.
.. snip ..
APOSTASY…
4. Formally join another church”
No question. It’s now excommunication if a member joins another church.
Bishop Richard
SLC, UT
63 JohnW // Jun 11, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Davis (#57)
I think it speaks extremely positively to your character that you don’t live your life affected by society or peer pressure.
Am I wrong in my understanding that some people are going through the Temple for the first time in close temporal proximity to their weddings? It would be tremendously difficult to raise my hand and say that I needed a few days, weeks, months, or years to think things through in that situation.
64 Jana // Jun 11, 2009 at 4:58 pm
#61:
Well then, I should be in line for ex’ing before John. I became a Quaker several months ago–even prior to John’s temple post.
Whatev. I don’t think this is really about John’s post at all. The temple stuff is available all over the ‘net. This action is really about some men in power who want to send a message of FEAR to folks that John might ‘unduly influence.’
The irony: they are sending the message that they are the ones that are afraid. Of free agency, no less (wait: and whose plan was that)?
65 Tom // Jun 11, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Thanks for your clear thinking, courage and respectful delivery.
While I left the church twenty years ago, I still have fond memories of many friendships and great experiences. Let the folks in SLC worry about their image.
It’s always best to take the highroad.
Cheers,
Tom
66 xJane // Jun 11, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Big Hos: welcome! And I have to say that I quite agree with your breakdown of contracts with or involving supernatural (or imaginary) beings.
—–
As to coercion, religion is a very powerful coercive force. Whether because our family, society, elders, or friends expect it, many of us stay or enter religions due to coercive forces. Aside from those, perhaps worldly forces, there is the ever-present detriment to soul to be considered.
John’s excommunication is possibly more important to the Powers Who Are than Jana’s is because, in Their world view, his expulsion will take his wife and children outside the protection of the family priest/head. Even if he doesn’t care for his own soul, They think, surely he would not doom his charges.
So we see the social and supernatural coercion at work.
67 Hellmut // Jun 11, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Sure, the LDS Church has every right to excommunicate whoever it wants. On the other hand, if you are claiming to be a Christian organization then you are incurring ethical obligations beyond legalities.
Extracting commitments from people in secret without prior disclosure is unethical. In some cases, it can even be abusive, especially, when a believer cannot resolve the conflict between faith and conscience, or worse, when believers suspend their conscience in favor of faith.
As Christians, our obligation to our neighbors precedes our obligations to the leadership of our organization. Those of us who choose to talk about the temple rites are giving their neighbors the opportunity to make an informed decision. That’s a good thing.
When LDS leaders are excommunicating John, they are interfering with his obligation to be a good neighbor, which happens to be the core of Christianity.
Of course, Church leaders are the beneficiaries of the contradictions between the temple ceremonies and the Gospels. They are probably not consciously motivated by selfishness but the fact is that their behavior in those matters is self-serving.
When self-interest is in play then Christians ought to explore their motivation carefully before they exercise power over their brothers and sisters.
Be that as it may, a responsible organization, Christian or secular, would not spring commitments on its clientele.
68 Hellmut // Jun 11, 2009 at 6:57 pm
The more faithful you are, the greater the coercive capacity of religion. If the stake president has a testimony then excommunication, or the threat thereof, this is a coercive act.
Of course, the stake president will also believe that the excommunication is a symbolic act that represents the reality of John’s damnation. In this view, the excommunication is a reminder for repentance.
In Mormon theology, repentance means John’s subjugation. The temple covenants are quite clear.
69 Equality // Jun 11, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Golly gee willikers, I step away for a couple drinks at Happy Hour and when I return there are like 20 more comments, including this one:
“Equality has confirmed that I can’t chime in without being ridiculed. So this is my last comment. Too bad. It’s rare that you have a respectful conversation going between the two sides. I did my best.”
Sorry, dude, I wasn’t ridiculing you. I ridicule superstition and magic, sure, but not the superstitious person who believes in magic. It’s the secular humanist version of “hate the sin but love the sinner.” I’m sorry if you were offended by your exposure to a reality-based approach to your religion of choice. I’ve been there, and I remember the discomfort that is felt–cognitive dissonance, I believe, is the technical term for it. It’s OK if you are not yet ready to leave the cocoon, sprout wings, and fly away. Maybe someday; there’s always hope. I truly hope you will not let your offense at my snarkiness (I am, after all, just a bitter apostate whom you ought to be able to dismiss without further argument) keep you away from John’s fine blog. He is much more patient and respectful than I am. Nevertheless, I will not fault you for choosing to be offended; I’m not David Bednar and so don’t think that your choosing to be offended is sinful. DWJ, I have total confidence that one day you will rise above your humble cucumber roots to achieve exalted full pickle status.
John and Jana, I totally respect you two. This blog has been one of my favorites for a few years, and while you and I have not interacted much, I consider you kindred spirits. I hope my intrusions on this post have not brought down the classiness of your gig here too many notches. I wish you both the very best. It’s my opinion that the church is quickly losing its best and brightest members. The two of you are among the most obvious examples of that phenomenon. Peace.
70 John Dehlin // Jun 11, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Love you, bro.
71 Brecken // Jun 11, 2009 at 7:25 pm
I’m with Caroline (post #8). I think it’s very small of an institution to run after someone who has already walked out the door, just to kick them in the tail. The nice thing is, though, that the tail-kicking can’t possibly go silently anymore, and the kicked does not have to suffer alone.
Stand firmly on those principles, John (and Jana, and GameBoy and CatGirl)! We are all literally behind you with arms and hearts to buoy you up in a heartbeat!
72 Numi // Jun 11, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Thank you so much for this post. I will be following it carefully.
If membership in another church is indeed grounds for excommunication then I am on that list. This saddens me for one reason only: my mother. She has been able to ignore my participation in the Buddhist Church but I know that she would be unable to deny official papers from the LDS Church.
Also, the above comments have made me reconsider my first temple experience 30 years ago. I have much more to think about.
I have enjoyed Jana’s blog for a long time and now will also be reading yours. Best wishes for your entire family.
73 Dallas // Jun 11, 2009 at 8:03 pm
whatever happens, your brave and open stance is refreshing. your friends stand with you.
74 Dazed and Amazed // Jun 11, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I finally succumbed to reading Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” so that my Significant Other would quit bugging me about my having never read it. (I think if I have to read this book, my SO should have to watch Bill Maher’s film “Religulous.”) Or, I should say, I’ve finally begun listening to the gazillion hours of it on 60 CDs; therefore, I can’t really tell you exactly where it is in the book or even what chapter it is. (I know, this will tick a lot of people off, but I just can’t do any better than this right now, and if I leave it to tomorrow, I’ll forget what I wanted to say altogether!)
In any case, if you are able to find the conversation in which Atlas actually shrugs for the first time (for all I know, the only time), you will find the bit I’m thinking of.
Francisco d’Anconia confronts Hank Rearden insisting that he should feel outraged over sacrificing himself and simultaneously being made to feel guilty for it.
Rand called this “sanction of the victims.” ARI makes this statement about the concept:
“In Ayn Rand’s final public talk, she exhorts a group of businessmen to stop apologizing, and stop supporting anti-capitalist institutions: ‘It is a moral crime to give money to support ideas with which you disagree. It is a moral crime to give money to support your own destroyers.’”
I hope you get the comparison I’m making.
For what it’s worth.
Love you, John.
75 Goldarn // Jun 11, 2009 at 10:07 pm
My understanding is that, with the Masons, the person knows in advance what promises they will make. With the temple rituals, that is not the case.
A promise extracted through coercion, made in advance, is worthless. If I got a practicing Mormon promise to do something I ask, then asked him to leave the Mormon faith, would they feel they should “keep their promise?” Of course not. I’m surprised that they don’t see it.
76 Zenaida // Jun 11, 2009 at 10:12 pm
This one’s for you John.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlI8YsRthG4
77 angryyoungwoman // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:03 am
I wish the best for you, JohnR. You felt equal to the SP because you are equal. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t let them intimidate you. Go in with your head high, knowing that you have lived according to your conscience. You have had integrity.
Congratulations. If I were anywhere near you I would shake your hand.
78 Joanna Brooks // Jun 12, 2009 at 6:57 am
sending you love and warmth and support for the whole family
79 Kaimi // Jun 12, 2009 at 7:38 am
I’m really sorry to hear about this, John.
This doesn’t sound like an enjoyable process, but it does sound like you’ll have lots of support from friends, as you go through it. Good luck in the process, and in reaching a resolution that works well for you both. Love and hugs to you and Jana.
80 William Shunn // Jun 12, 2009 at 8:06 am
DWJ (#22): I think there’s only one instance in the temple ceremony (and I’m trying to be sensitive to secrecy here) where there’s any talk of a covenant made “with” God. In most cases, the covenant is made “before” God, angels, and witnesses.
Taking marriage as an analogy, you make a covenant _with_ your spouse _before_ witnesses. No one would say that the witnesses are partners in your marriage contract, or that you’ve promised to love, honor, or cherish them.
(#23) My family definitely thought I was breaking trust with them when I abandoned my faith and broke my temple covenants. So did a lot of my friends, and many, many members of the extended LDS community. (In fact, the hate mail I received about my web site over the years would have curled your toes. In a few cases, my correspondants wished death on me.)
I’m know I disappointed all those people, but which is more important — for me to live up (or down, from my point of view) to their expectations, or for me to follow the dictates of my own conscience, which I came to after a great deal of personal study and wrestling with my ethical dilemma? Call me selfish, but I’m the only one of them I have to live with and whose expectations I have to live up to.
81 William Shunn // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:53 am
Davis (#37) said, “In this case he obviously feels that his word and reputation are not as important as the help he is trying to provide.”
Not as important among what group? I already have a reputation in the LDS community as an apostate and a wrongdoer. How much more does it hurt me in that community to add a reputation as an oathbreaker as well? Not much, since it’s no longer my community.
My reputation in my new community (and among members of my old community who are open-minded enough to consider it this way) will be, I hope, of an individual with the discernment and conviction to live in a way congruent with his conscience, even though it cost him significant standing in his former community. I would hope those people would decide for themselves that my word is good, and be satisfied that, since they are not imaginary, I take my obligations to them seriously.
82 kquickly // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:16 am
Whoa, you are one self-possessed dude. You should be proud for speaking your mind, very thoughtfully – in every sense of the word – in your blog, your daily life, and in a toe-to-toe confrontation with the question. I doubt I would have had the presence of mind and spirit to do the same.
Your self-possession may be steadfast yet but working through its consequences with church folks may be quite a test of your good humor and energy. We will stand by you, Jana, and the kids however you choose to handle this. By “we” I mean our family, but I know that the meeting as a whole has great confidence and love for you all of you and will help as well, as you see fit. Let us know what, if anything, you need.
83 Gerald Breinholt // Jun 12, 2009 at 11:12 am
John,
I once had great respect for you in the University 25th Ward. I have only heard of your speaking out against LDS authority. Having heard of your online discussion of sacred temple covenants, I cannot be silent. You apparently have no respect for others who keep our sacred covenants, Church authority, or God’s for that fact. As many others have done, you thinly vail yourself under the cause of free speech or whatever you want to call it.
The LDS Church is a theocracy, not a democracy. But, I for one would like to hear of your excommunication. Or, you could do the honorable act of having your name removed from the Church’s records. This appears to be what you want. Even your daughter knows this. Or, maybe you just like the attention.
I hope that no one in your family is ever violently or sexually assaulted. This is similar to how I feel about what I have heard you say concerning the Church. That you may never have to sit in a court of law and listen to the details of such a violation be discussed publicly in detail.
God bless your children.
84 Bored in Vernal // Jun 12, 2009 at 11:19 am
Here’s my poem for you:
Dear John
85 Meryl // Jun 12, 2009 at 11:32 am
This is a fascinating discussion, thanks all. I want to contribute a thought about the church’s choice and role in this situation (from a social scientist, not a member).
Part of creating a strong community is (typically, if not always) to make clear distinctions about who is and is not a member. The more separated you are from others, the more your members are willing to help and support one another.
The Mormon church is traditionally good at this, and their community will surely weaken if they do not continue it. Blogging about the church as someone who no longer believes but is still a member blurs that distinction. The excommunication restores it. In this context, I have to say I think they’re doing the right thing.
And of course, all my love and support to John and the family… I think you’re doing the right thing, too
86 Meryl // Jun 12, 2009 at 12:34 pm
#82: your post just appeared on my screen, and I have to say it sounds to me like a thinly veiled threat against John’s children. That is horrific. You may feel violated, but John’s posts are doing no permanent harm to any individual. Your comparison is entirely unwarranted and very, very nasty. Please re-state if your meaning was other than to threaten.
87 John // Jun 12, 2009 at 12:58 pm
William (#80)–great point about trust and communities. I think my trust within most Mormon circles disappeared many moons ago. These were people who, when I couldn’t believe the same things and share the same values, preferred my silence to my authenticity.
I hope to maintain respect among those who value me for who I am, rather than for who I pretended to be.
88 John // Jun 12, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Thanks, Meryl.
89 William Shunn // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Gerald Breinholt (#82): As a former Latter-day Saint who first experienced the temple endowment ceremony in 1986, I can certainly understand how violated you feel. You feel as if the things you hold most sacred and dear have been trampled in the dirt and made into a mockery. You feel doubly betrayed in that it was done by something you once respected. I know it must hurt. A lot.
However, I have a hard time finding any equivalence, moral or otherwise, between John’s discussion of the endowment ceremony and child molestation. All John has done is talk, and that talking did not happen until he had done a whole lot of agonized soul-searching about whether or not it was the right thing to do.
I doubt that anyone who molests a child believes that it’s the right thing to do. They may well have spent months and years agonizing over the question of whether to do it or not, but likely that agonizing stemmed from a realization that child molestation was *wrong*. If someone, after going through that self-examination process, went ahead and molested a child, it would be because they *failed* to live up to what they knew was right.
John decided to do what he did because he determined it was the *right* thing to do, after significant thought and agony. John did not discuss the temple ceremony because he slipped up in a moment of weakness and did something he knew full well to be wrong.
If you ever had any true respect for John, please try to view his actions in the light of the honorable person you once knew. And please understand how desperately heinous and poisonous is your suggestion that there is *any* moral equivalency between his actions and the actions of sociopathic child molesters.
If you could only stand where I stand and see how very warped that kind of thinking looks.
(By the way, I know you didn’t mean it that way, but your post really does make it sound like, in a backhanded way, you do hope to see him feel the kind of pain you believe yourself to be feeling right now. But that pain is nothing compared to what you would feel in the scenario you envision.)
90 Gerald Breinholt // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:15 pm
#85: There is no threat, only a comparison of how I feel violated by John’s inconsiderate revelations about LDS temple rituals that I consider sacred. I only wish that his children were not exposed to John’s dark cynicism and disregard for others.
91 John // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Thanks, William. Gerald (and others) may be referring to my perhaps poorly thought out attempt to explain the problems, coercion, and possible positive initial feeling with this analogy in comment #28:
I do feel strongly that the oaths are part of a pattern of coercion and abuse of power by the Church. Ultimately, this may be the key point that I suspect I’ll be ex’d for: I believe the contract was done under coercion and under false pretenses, and that I have a moral obligation to speak openly about the potential of the temple institution to harm people.
Here’s a parallel: let’s say I had a consensual sexual relationship with a much older and caring adult teacher while I was, say, thirteen. S/he swore me to secrecy, and out of affection, I complied. I grow up and realize that the relationship was wrong and that the same teacher was still sleeping with their students. Would I be morally bound by my promise to secrecy or by the need to protect potential victims from harm?
I don’t want to turn this thread into a debate about the harm the temple causes: you both asked to understand my reasoning. There you go.
92 Morning musings on a changing marriage « The Exponent // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:20 pm
[...] found myself a bit blindsided by the news that the Stake President intends to hold a church ‘council’ (or court, as I called when I was younger) because of my spouse’s online writings. Many thoughts have [...]
93 John // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Note, at no point did I say that the temple is the moral equivalent of child molestation. But many of us experience it as a moral net negative, and holding us to an oath to stay silent about a bad thing is a bad thing. That was my point. I challenge those of you who might be tempted to to avoid the kneejerk reaction and to consider the original context and the careful wording.
94 John // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Thanks for the clarification, Gerald (#89).
95 Rachel // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I don’t like to give attention to trolls, but Gerald Breinholt’s comment appears to be a sexual threat against your children. In the words of Christ, he has committed [sexual assault against children] in his heart. If anyone needs a testimony of the coercive power of the temple covenants, Gerald just showed what it can do to one’s psyche.
John, my wished for the best. Jana, my love and support. It will work out.
96 Rachel // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Looks like I need to refresh the page before making comments. Glad Gerald didn’t mean it that way. It really came across as odd. Clarifications are good.
97 Tim // Jun 12, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I’m confused. Assuming creation, God’s works are interesting and exotic (they fly, echolocate, replicate, live in lava vents, change colors to match their surroundings, and so on). And it’s all entirely transparent and open source.
All I see here is a pantomime with sheets and, basically, a bullying ceremony.
As a non-Mormon, I now apparently possess some valuable secret– yet one that is basically useless to me.
If it had been a mystical secret for a substance that endows wisdom or extended life, or converts lead into gold or destroy the entire world in a few mushroom clouds, now that would have been interesting and there might be reasons to object based on the ramifications.
I don’t see God keeping secrets, and what’s entirely open is fascinating and a million more interesting than this. Does John need to be excommunicated because potential new members and donors will see what they’re actually getting into?
98 John // Jun 12, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Kaimi, thanks for the defenses here and at
I don’t want to usurp Jana’s original topic, so I’m posting this comment here:
I have to say that I’m troubled that much of the discussion by active members seems to be dominated more by a narrow focus on contractual obligations with little attention paid to the wider context of faith, morality, human considerations. Is temple mormonism so legalistic?
99 Kaimi // Jun 12, 2009 at 3:42 pm
I’ll follow John’s lead and re-post a couple of long comments about John’s actions here.
It’s interesting to see different reactions to this, including some very different reactions from friends of mine.
1. I’ve listened to John’s podcast, and I think that the reaction is at least somewhat predictable.
During the podcast, John discusses the penalty in the pre-1990 temple ceremony, and briefly likens it to a cult. He also discusses the punishment portion of the ceremony.
He explicitly tries to distance himself from mockery of the ceremony, and wants to have a serious discussion of ways that the temple ceremony, especially the punishment portions, made him personally feel uncomfortable.
Now, I think there is room for debate over whether John’s podcast analysis violates any specific covenant. There is no covenant made not to talk about the ceremony generally. That’s a common enough understanding, but the exact requirement of non-disclosure is that he will not reveal the signs or tokens.
I think that John can say that he indeed has not revealed these in his podcast discussion. *However* — and this is where he may technically be in violation — he did paste in a portion of the Big Love clip, which shows a portion of the veil ceremony. Is that a violation of the covenant not to disclose signs and tokens? I don’t know.
(One could also argue that a variety of the general covenants — law of God, lightmindedness, etc. — may have been implicated by John’s podcast. It’s my read of John’s post that this was not the allegation; that the allegation was rather that John had violated secrecy requirements. But I may be reading it incorrectly.)
2. I don’t think that John is or was saying that the church is like a child molester.
I think what he’s saying is in fact a couple of things:
a. There are good types of secrecy and bad types of secrecy. This is actually pretty uncontroversial, I think.
That is, there are promises that are probably good to keep. But promises of secrecy can be abused as well. While one could argue for a theory of absolute promise-keeping even for very abusive promises, I think that most people would prefer a rule that recognizes the possibility of abuse of secrecy, and allows for some disclosure in those kinds of cases.
b. John is also saying that, to him, the temple covenants — even the agreed-upon secret portions — may come within some reasonable exception to a secrecy requirement. That’s a more complicated claim, and I think that most active church members would disagree with him on that point.
John has suggested one rationale for an exception (and his commenters have suggested another). John’s major rationale is coercion. He has stated that he did not make the promise with full information about what it entailed, and that aspects of the community led him to do so, perhaps against his free will.
That rationale, if correct, could be a legitimate reason for voiding a promise of confidentiality. That is, a before-the-fact promise of confidentiality is probably constrained by some reasonableness factors. If your friend says, I’m going to tell you a secret, but you can’t tell anyone, you’re in this situation. You don’t learn the secret until you swear confidentiality. A lot of times this is fine (as when the friend’s secret is that he likes a particular girl).
But there is some boundary there. If your friend’s secret is that he is a serial killer, you probably have an obligation to turn him in.
Which brings us to the ultimate inquiry. Which is this:
Is the nature of the temple ceremony (pre-1990, with throat-slitting) sufficiently offensive, harmful, or otherwise problematic that it should void John’s promise of confidentiality (given before full understanding of the content of the ceremony)?
And here we’re at a place where the remedies are wildly divergent. If the ceremony itself is not harmful or offensive, then John is in breach and should not be discussing it. But if it is harmful or offensive, then not only is John excused from discussing it, he probably has an affirmative responsibility to do so, in order to prevent others from suffering the same harm.
100 Kaimi // Jun 12, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Well, my excuse is that I’m a lawyer. Legalistic argument is like wine for me. Except that I’m a Mormon, so I guess it’s like green jell-o.
But let me push back a little on this. It seems to be a little bit too defensive. For one thing, I don’t know that it’s accurate, as a simple descriptive matter. Several people who aren’t active members (including Hellmut and Bill Shunn) have given their analysis of the contractual obligations. And I think it’s a subtle attempt to downplay arguments against your actions — it casts people who disagree with you as techcnocrats who don’t see the big picture. As your friend, I’m going to push back a little (gently!) and say, don’t take an easy way out, here.
More to come, one moment
101 Kaimi // Jun 12, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Damn it, just noticed, there’s a separate thread on this. Too many threads to follow while I’m trying to keep up with faculty meetings.
102 Hellmut // Jun 12, 2009 at 4:18 pm
The problem with the temple ceremony are not the punishments, although they are offensive and un-Christian. The problem is the idolatry afforded an organization and its mortal leaders.
As a German, I never would have agreed to swear obedience if I had known what was coming. Elder Poelman expressed the difference between the gospel and the church well in his original conference talk.
Affording any human being that as much authority as the temple ceremony is going to get you into ethical trouble. As the Milgram experiments demonstrated, even the best of us may become abusive if an authority figure sanctions that behavior.
I saw that happen during my mission all the time. I think this dynamic is at the heart of child sex abuse scandals and cover ups at Church. I have often wondered if good Mormons like Kyle Sampson were rendered more vulnerable to unethical instructions because of our idolatrous relationship to authority.
103 Kaimi // Jun 12, 2009 at 4:35 pm
“As a German, I never would have agreed to swear obedience if I had known what was coming. . . . Affording any human being that as much authority as the temple ceremony is going to get you into ethical trouble. As the Milgram experiments demonstrated, even the best of us may become abusive if an authority figure sanctions that behavior.”
Err, Hellmut? Back away from the rhetoric, my man.
It’s not as though ritual orgies and goat sacrifices are taking place in the temple. Nobody is being zapped with electrodes. Comparisons to Milgram will make active members roll their eyes, or get pissed off.
Even applying a relatively unfriendly standard of description, the temple ceremony isn’t Milgram, or even close. Let’s describe it, in a relatively unsympathetic way:
It’s a two hour, relatively boring, somewhat repetitive process, which consists mostly of sitting in one place. It has a few uncomfortable scenes of implied violence (or did, when John went through) and a few uncomfortable scenes of womens subordination. It has a variety of relatively obscure hand gestures and some chanting and repetition.
That’s it. (And like I said, that’s a deliberately unsympathetic summary.) There’s no electro-shock, no goat sacrifices on altars.
I can understand John’s personal discomfort, and his own eventual motivation to discuss it online. But let’s be clear about what it’s not. This is not fire in a crowded theater, it’s not an “oh shit, we must call the cops right now” moment. It caused discomfort for John and didn’t live up to its high expectations; that doesn’t make it electroshock abuse. Let’s keep it real.
104 Hellmut // Jun 12, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Kaimi, Milgram found that people will engage into abusive behavior as long as it is ordered by an authority figure.
The temple ritual endows not the members but church leaders with a degree of authority that borders on idolatry.
That is why so many of us who are trying so hard to be the best people who we can be, engage into unethical behavior.
Whether it is Mormons ripping each other off in the latest multi-level marketing scheme, missionaries treating their investigators as numbers for the cause, Mormon psychologists devising torture programs, or Mormon lawyers firing federal prosecutors for political reasons, the temple covenants have rendered us less sensitive to telling the difference between good and evil.
If you will read my words carefully, I am sure, you will be able to discern that I did not say that the temple ceremonies were like the Milgram experiments. I did say that Milgram’s research shows why the temple covenants are a bad thing, i.e. are more likely to lead to unethical behavior.
105 Kiskilili // Jun 12, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Best wishes, John. I have faith that you’ll weather this well.
I understand and respect the Church’s need to maintain its boundaries around a somewhat coherent identity, and excommunication is surely a necessary tool to that end. At the same time, I do find it somewhat ironic that those who attempt to resign from the Church on their own initiative are often met with resistance, where others who have no desire to formally leave are sometimes pushed out.
I think I would have loved to be excommunicated (or maybe it would have been grueling–I can only say this because I wasn’t). But I really ached for a ritual closure, for a public opportunity to formally repudiate, before God and Church, the covenants I’d made. What I wanted was a formal, ritualistic anti-temple ceremony, or an un-baptism. I wanted an opportunity to publicly say “no” to what I should never have said “yes” to.
Instead I was stuck in limbo for several months trying to convince my stake president I was serious about leaving. Simply getting a letter in the mail was, in certain respects, emotionally unsatisfying.
So enjoy your excommunication on my behalf.
106 John // Jun 12, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Zenaida, I finally got a chance to listen to “Eh Hee.” It’s amazing how powerfully DM speaks to me. Thank you.
Kiskilili said, “what I wanted was a formal, ritualistic anti-temple ceremony”: YES! I no longer believe in God, but I do believe in the power of ritual. Maybe this is another reason I dragged my feet for so long…
107 Hellmut // Jun 12, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I appreciate your good intentions, Kiskilili, but don’t you find it funny that there are many social entities that maintain their boundaries just fine with freedom of speech and without excommunication?
Mormonism could be a great place if it weren’t for too many Mormons making too many excuses for their leaders.
It is our acquiescence that enables the abuse of power.
108 Thomas Watson // Jun 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm
@82 -Gerald Breinholt,
>>”I hope that no one in your family is ever violently or sexually assaulted. This is similar to how I feel about what I have heard you say concerning the Church.”
Apples and donkeys, Gerald. Apples and donkeys. It’s healthy for a Mormon to take offense at someone speaking about the secret handshakes, passwords, body positions, and chants, but there’s absolutely zero parallel in what he’s discussed about the temple (offensive as it is to some) and the absolute evil that comes from a sexual assault on a child.
John didn’t rape anyone.
John didn’t molest any children.
But, I ‘get’ that your spiritual sensibilities have been absolutely disgusted that someone would talk about what you hold dear to your heart.
I once shared your exact same attitude toward those who would even hint at something so dear to me.
And I was wrong to have made such absolutely nonsensical comparisons or arguments.
But there’s hope for you, Gerald.
You can be a Mormon and still get rid of the attitude. Sure, be upset. Be offended. Voice your concerns. But try to muster up a little more meat for the discussion than comparing John to a child molesting rapist who exposes his (from 89) dark cynicism and disregard for others to his children.
I’m sure you mean well, Gerald. I know this because I was once just like you.
The LDS Church will do what they have to do to John’s membership status. But why not give the LDS PR Team a break and demonstrate that Mormons aren’t so binary, judgmental, and naive as to hate both the sinner and the sin.
Be the Christian Mormon that so many non-Mormons don’t believe exist.
109 Getting Personal. | Mind on Fire // Jun 12, 2009 at 6:03 pm
[...] I Think I Was Just Informed of My Pending Excommunication. [...]
110 Kiskilili // Jun 12, 2009 at 6:43 pm
It’s interesting that some of us who felt violated or disturbed by the temple are actually really drawn to ritual. (I adore ritual, personally.) I wonder whether there’s a relationship there? In that those of us who are most responsive to ritual to begin with, for whom the temple is potentially the most meaningful, are correspondingly the most vulnerable to being hurt by it? Hmm.
Hellmut, I’m completely in favor of free speech and strenuously opposed to oaths made under duress. But I’m fortunate to live in a time and place in which religion is privatized (theoretically anyway). If I choose, I can exercise my rights and publicly proclaim that I’m a believing Mormon who considers Jesus a fraud and worships Woden by sacrificing cockroaches under a full moon. But if any behavior or belief can be subsumed under the rubric “Mormonism,” Mormon identity becomes so diffuse as to be meaningless. At some point it behooves the Church to formally codify a barrier between me and it as a way of maintaining control over its identity.
Like most deviants, I’d probably be perfectly content with a big-tent approach in which the community policed itself rather than being policed from above by a magesterium. But I can respect that the institution may wish to maintain boundaries even if I disagree with where or how those boundaries are drawn. While there are advantages to open social movements that lack ideological policing, I’m not sure they always cohere terribly well. To take one example, it can be frustrating arguing with people who hold that “true” feminism means accepting men’s divine mandate to preside over women. At some point the term becomes bleached of any usefulness.
In my view, the much more serious problem is the lack of transparency in the process of boundary maintenance, the fact that the rationales for excommunications over heresy are not publicized, standards of orthodoxy are not applied uniformly, and people are pushed out for seemingly idiosyncratic or capricious reasons, leaving us in a fog that, at its worst, creates an aversion to intellectual exploration.
Anyway, gotta go to bed. Tschuess.
111 rsc // Jun 12, 2009 at 6:48 pm
john, thank you.
i kept writing other things but will just leave it at “thanks”.
112 Hellmut // Jun 12, 2009 at 7:20 pm
I appreciate your perspective, Kiskilili, especially about religion and the private sphere. Certainly, that’s the most advantageous organization of religion that we have developed to date. Religious freedom means that one has to tolerate distasteful practices as well.
On the other hand, words have meaning. If one chooses to identify oneself as a Christian organization then that comes with certain obligations. Some of those are violated as a matter of course by LDS authorities.
It’s up to the members to hold their leaders accountable and to transform their culture so that it becomes a safe place for their children and neighbors.
Christianity provides a lot of resources for that purpose. Since that is the system that the brethren are claiming for themselves, I say, lets hold them to their own standards.
113 William Shunn // Jun 12, 2009 at 7:20 pm
John (#90): I see that this must be so. Or rather, I take your point as to how Gerald probably didn’t just pluck that particular comparison out of thin air. Of course, that doesn’t change my opinion that it’s a specious comparison.
114 Matt // Jun 12, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Thread kill
John, Jana — I hope you know how much you mean to people like me. Long live you.
115 xJane // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I’d like to step in in defense of @83 Gerald Breinholt. As much as it did come across as a back-handed wish for child molestation, it was an attempt to underscore John’s relation of the coercion he felt as a Temple initiant to the coercion implicit in a sexual relationship between an adult and a minor. Gerald’s point was that coercion was not that child molestation was a light thing but rather an agreement that coercion is unwanted in most relationships. It was a hope for non-coercive religion and an acknowledgement of the parallel John sought to draw.
116 fMhLisa // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:20 pm
We’ll be poorer without you John, much love to you.
117 Gerald Breinholt // Jun 13, 2009 at 4:48 am
A final thought from the recesses of John and Jana’s past. Yes, I am hurt. I still do not see how John’s temple discussion benefits anyone but himself. Maybe it is good therapy. Obviously John felt coerced. And obviously each of us has the right to break our covenants. I don’t mean to belittle John’s intelligence, but if he can find “fault” in temple covenants, anyone can. No one needs to be shown our errors. We each can search them on our own.
I appreciate many of you who are able to see both mine and John’s side. A better analogy might have been the breaking in of a home. This I have experienced first hand. It is a violation that is difficult to deal with. At the time and still, the violation of a of the physical person was as close to a spiritual violation as I feel there is.
Yes, it took balls for John to talk about his feelings of coersion. I have family who have left the Church. But, as far as I know they do not feel the need to discuss temple rituals. Sure, apples and asses by comparison, maybe.
I have no ill will toward John and Jana, or their children. Maybe I should just remember them as I do from thirteen odd years ago. But, I felt the personal need to speak out at this time.
118 Hellmut // Jun 13, 2009 at 5:37 am
Gerald Breinholt, I appreciate your apprehension about discussing temple rituals.
If you think about it, may be, you can appreciate that it is difficult, if not impossible, to work through one’s socialization without seeking the support of others.
One way the LDS Church controls us is by socially isolating anyone who does not obey. You ask a pertinent question and you get labeled an ‘enemy of the Church’ as if you had participated in the lynching of Joseph Smith himself.
The secrecy requirement with respect to the temple is one more brick in the wall. It promotes the institution’s power at the expense of the individual, in this case, at the expense of John.
Temple secrecy is a self-serving arrangement that benefits the Church and hurts the Saints.
John needs to heal himself because the Church sure ain’t going to help him deal with his Mormon issues. Kudos to him for reaching out to his community to work through his issues.
If you think about this matter a little longer and put yourself into the place of those of us to whom our principles, the gospel if you will, is more important than the power of the LDS Church, you will come to understand that John was actually protecting his integrity.
119 Thoughts on John Remy’s Excommunication | Main Street Plaza // Jun 13, 2009 at 6:34 am
[...] So, another LDS-nonbeliever is getting ex’d for blogging! First there was simian, whose excommunication caused quite a stir in the Bloggernacle at the time (though I can’t find the relevant posts anymore — I think they were on an earlier incarnation of his blog, which he has deleted). Now it’s John Remy’s turn! [...]
120 William Shunn // Jun 13, 2009 at 6:52 am
Gerald (#117): I don’t mean to belittle John’s intelligence, but if he can find “fault” in temple covenants, anyone can. No one needs to be shown our errors. We each can search them on our own.
If that’s the case, then what’s the point of having teachers? What’s the point of Sunday school? Why not do all our gospel study on our own? Why is it okay and necessary to discuss and search out positive things as a group, but only search out faults in that learning individually?
Finally, why is it necessary for the church to send missionaries around the world? After all, all the information about church teachings is freely available in books and on the internet. Surely if people want to know about the church, they can search those things out on their own. They don’t need elders coming to their door to point it out for them. Right?
121 John // Jun 13, 2009 at 7:01 am
Hey Kaimi, here’s my response to your friendly push-back.
I reviewed my earlier comments, and in #30 (my first response) I said:
“I find the weight that the Church and its members give to oaths very very troubling…Finally, an overemphasis on the direness of oaths increases the danger that Church leaders and members will miss other human and moral issues.”
And I think this is what happened in the discussion here. We’re going in with a surgeon’s scalpel when my concern has always been with the whole body, the temple rites in the context of a member’s experience of the Church social order. The oaths, the penalties, the lack of foreknowledge going in to the temple, the history of ritualized violence and the implicit sanction of violence embedded in particular rites, the gender and patriarchal hierarchies that are strengthened by temple language, the social pressures to participate, the temple recommend interview, the inclusion/exclusion factors which are reinforced at family and ward temple gatherings (esp. weddings), the use of vague temple imagery to socialize youth and control adult behavior and even expression of belief: all of these and more, especially when experienced from the perspective of a struggling, questioning member, all contribute to create an oppressive, coercive, manipulative environment I object to. The oath is just a drop in the bucket from my perspective.
122 John // Jun 13, 2009 at 7:25 am
fMhLisa (#116): thank you, thank you, thank you! You are absolutely one of my heroes. And I’m not dead yet.
Gerald (#117): I feel no ill will towards you as well–I wish you the best. Peace.
Kiskilili (#110) said:
At some point it behooves the Church to formally codify a barrier between me and it as a way of maintaining control over its identity…I can respect that the institution may wish to maintain boundaries even if I disagree with where or how those boundaries are drawn. While there are advantages to open social movements that lack ideological policing, I’m not sure they always cohere terribly well.
Well said. And I agree 100%. I think you’re aware of this, but I want to reiterate to all that I have no problem with the Church excommunicating me. But I can also relate to the concern of those who are on the margins but who care deeply about which side of the line they fall on. I think that’s one reason I feel a need to add a little to the body of captured knowledge on the web, to increase the transparency factor by a fraction of a percentage point.
123 Holly // Jun 13, 2009 at 8:40 am
I’ve read objections to John’s analogy comparing the vow of silence he made in the temple to a vow made by a minor to remain silent about a sexual relationship with an adult.
I think the analogy is very apt, deficient only in its level of violence, threat and divine approval involved. If the adult also did something like, say, drown a puppy in a bathtub and inform the the minor that any discussion of the details of the relationship would make God so angry that he would want the minor to die, both in this life and next.
I realize that the temple ceremony was changed in 1990, but I went through at a time when you still had to enact your own ritual execution through several possible methods and were told, explicitly, that you deserved to be brutally murdered if you talked about this stuff.
Most of the time I think that I’ve gotten over most of the harm done to me by the church. But I am shaking and fighting the urge to vomit as I type this. The threat of violence, the coercive, punitive tone, made the temple a form of spiritual rape.
Just as we are seeing with the whole torture debate, information and promises extracted through violence or threat of violence are legally valid. Therefore I do not feel that my vow is legally valid. Furthermore, not only do I feel no obligation to abide by it, I feel an obligation to inform others of what I experienced.
Much is made of the fact that it was an LDS judge who authorized and two LDS psychologists who created the Bush administration’s torture program. Given that these men were trained to believe that coercion and threats of violence were actually part of the pinnacle of spirituality and communion with God, is that really surprising?
124 Holly // Jun 13, 2009 at 8:49 am
make that “promises extracted through violence or threat of violence are legally INvalid. ”
this episode of PTSD I’m experiencing has made it hard to proofread properly.
125 Holly // Jun 13, 2009 at 9:04 am
p.s. John, I would like to ask you a question you once asked of me: ” If it’s so pernicious, why not just separate yourself completely from the Church? Why have this official affiliation with an institution that stands opposed to so many of your core values?” In other words, why have you waited to be excommunicated? Why have you retained any ties with the church after you stopped attending?
126 John // Jun 13, 2009 at 10:06 am
Holly (#123), you stated that much more eloquently than I was able to. Thanks.
In answer to #125: First of all, I haven’t felt very angry lately, so there was no rush. Second is a strategic consideration (this is from the next post:
One of the reasons I didn’t rush to remove my name from the records was because I was conscious that I have more power to criticize the Church while I’m an official member. Once I’m off, I’m easily dismissed as a critic of any value. Some of you might want to think about this, as you debate whether or not to remove your name from Church records. I prefer to use my exit to draw at least a little attention to the negative aspects of the Church, rather than leaving quietly. I only get one chance at this, after all.
127 John // Jun 13, 2009 at 10:09 am
BTW, I am now deleting comments I consider trollish based on my experience/judgment on whether I think these deteriorate and detract from rather than add to the dialog.
128 Holly // Jun 13, 2009 at 11:13 am
re: 126–that all makes sense, as does what you said in the next post, which I should have read before asking my question. Thanks.
129 The other JohnW // Jun 14, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I’m getting to this post late, and I haven’t had a chance to read all the way down, but let me just say: I am so impressed, John, that you could stand toe-to-toe, and feel equal to, a professional gynecologist. That takes balls, my friend.
Finally, at the risk of sounding uncouth, I must say that no one has broached the most disturbing aspect of the Mormon temple ceremony: boredom. If they could just bring back some penalties or something, I might go along. You know, spice it up a bit.
130 John // Jun 14, 2009 at 1:55 pm
The other JohnW (#129): Funny you should mention that his profession–I couldn’t bring myself to address him as “President”, so I called and introduced him as “Doctor.” So I guess even if it took me three years to finally shake off my irrational fear of ecclesiastical authority, my inerudite lips still pay homage to the power of the institutionally bequeathed title, eh, Dr. W?
131 Thomas Watson // Jun 14, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Are we to assume that if our previous comments survive (#127) that we’re contributing in a non-trollish way?
132 Ryan // Jun 15, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I could write a lot in response to this John. I’ll keep it short though and sincerely wish you and Jana the best during this ordeal. I don’t find this surprising considering the religious organization. You’re simply being fearless on this topic and with good reason. They want you to be fearful, especially of consequences. Thanks for being fearless. The positive influence of this is certainly significant.
133 xJane // Jun 16, 2009 at 8:03 am
dittos to Ryan @132: this is a social structure that is based mostly in fear. Do not allow them to inspire fear in you.
134 JohnW // Jun 16, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Wait, you addressed him as “Doctor” Clayton?
It’s a good thing you didn’t ask to join OCFM, or we’d have to initiate a review panel on your insistence on using titles. Radical equality, John. We don’t use titles.
135 JohnW // Jun 16, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Gerald (#82)
I’ve been struggling for a couple days now with wanting to post “Well, I hope that [some horrible thing] never happens to you.”
But every time I start, I’m faced with how horrible, ominous, and threatening the phrasing is, regardless of your intention (and mine wouldn’t have been good in the first place).
Just saying.
136 JohnW // Jun 24, 2009 at 2:47 pm
There seems to have been a strong reaction to the analogy (#28) of a coercive sexual relationship with a 13 year old.
Would the analogy be any better if it was an 18 year old’s relationship with a thesis adviser?
137 Cate // Sep 7, 2009 at 10:50 am
John,
What struck me about your recounting of this experience is Catgirl’s comment “Isnt’ that what you wanted anyway?”
It reminded me of those men who commit some criminal act and then rather that commit suicide, they goad police into pulling the trigger, partly, I suspect, out of cowardice, and partly, perhaps, in an effort to make their killers look bad.
If you wanted to leave the church, you should have had your name removed from the records. Now, instead, you have placed the gun not simply in the hands of strangers clad in a uniform of authority, but in the hands of your friends.
If indeed, your intent was always to leave the church, and you are staying merely to legitimize your criticisms, then you have long since stopped being a member. So why the assisted suicide?
I sincerely hope that you find happiness, John, and I hope that you and the men who handled you ex-communication all walk away from the experience with a spirit of charity and a conscience void of offense.
138 Hellmut // Sep 7, 2009 at 11:10 am
Good to meet you, Cate. I cannot speak for John but many of us remain true to our values and are disappointed that the church and its leaders have forsaken the values of the gospel.
Since I am true to the gospel, it is not my place to resign. If others want to excommunicate my friends and me, it shall be on their heads.
139 John // Sep 7, 2009 at 11:50 am
Cate, I wouldn’t characterize my exit quite in those terms, but it’s a fair analogy on some level. To be honest, after the experience recounted here and in the posts of this week in June, and after months of no contact, I was kind of hoping this had all died down. I wish the decision seemed as simple as you present. Suffice it to say that I honestly do think this is the right thing to do, from my perspective. But I can understand and even empathize with how any Mormon would see this differently.
I do appreciate your well wishing. And while I think the experience on Wed will be uncomfortable for all involved, at this time I definitely do not feel any hatred or anger towards any of the men I’ll see there.
140 Cate // Sep 7, 2009 at 5:05 pm
John,
Just so you know, this isn’t a Mormon issue to me. I feel the same sense of bewilderment at Catholics who reject fundamental parts of Catholic dogma and then get offended when described as “lapsed” or refused the communion. If you believe the church is fundamentally flawed, why do you value membership?
And, of course, I recognize that the situation is anything but simple. I’ve seen the pain in the faces of the men who walk out of those courts after having decided to excommunicate. It’s not a responsibility they relish or enjoy. JS described excommunication in terms of love and it is supposed to be about that – allowing a struggling member the time to find their way if they choose without the obligations that membership entails.
If you are not looking to reconcile with the church, excommunication is pointless and you should simply have your name removed and walk away being true to yourself.
Hellmut – I’m heading over to read at your website
141 Cate // Sep 7, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Just wanted to add that I didn’t mean that last comment to sound abrupt – I was interrupted by a quartet of grade schoolers demanding bedtime kisses and rituals. You know the deal.
142 Hellmut // Sep 7, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Thanks, Cate. I am afraid that it is rather slow lately.
If you are interested in my Mormon experience, I wrote about it here: http://liberalpreacher.blogspot.com/2006/04/testimony-of-dissident.html
My apologies to John for the self-promotion.
143 John // Sep 7, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Hellmut, you of all folks can feel free to promote away here.
Cate, I do indeed know the deal.
144 Anijen // Sep 7, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I just don’t understand how you equate a temple oath with a teacher having sex with a student, bizarre analogy….
I don’t see how any oaths made in the temple (it doesn’t matter if you no longer believe in them) can be harmful.
145 Equality // Sep 7, 2009 at 7:30 pm
“I don’t see how any oaths made in the temple (it doesn’t matter if you no longer believe in them) can be harmful.”
One could ask the Fancher party that question.
146 Anijen // Sep 7, 2009 at 10:11 pm
I do not tolerate murder and neither does the church. It wasn’t a temple covenant that murdered the Fancher party but overzealous misguided fearful members. It had nothing to do with the Temple ceremony and the church did not sanction it. Strawman.
147 William Shunn // Sep 7, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Anijen:
“And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands;
“Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.”
–1 Nephi 4:12, 13
148 South Bend Cougar // Sep 8, 2009 at 2:55 am
Apostasy is not new, just ask Lucifer. You, as he, have chosen to mock God and he will not permit you to enjoy membership in his Church. Yet he graciously will permit you and your friends your agency, for a season. What happens after this life will unfortunately cause you immense sorrow and regret. You have the opportunity to make choices but you won’t be able to avoid the consequences. The Church has a right to protect it’s name and ordinances so you shouldn’t feel that it has in any way been unfair to you. I’m glad that you feel “liberated” but I only feel sorrow for you and your posterity. Maybe like the prodigal, you will someday reconsider.
149 Hellmut // Sep 8, 2009 at 3:10 am
That’s bicycling, Anijen. Bowing to the top, kicking those below, another troubling feature of Mormon socialization. The brethren are never to blame. It’s always the members.
It’s the authoritarian mindset that makes Mormonism so dangerous.
150 Brecken // Sep 8, 2009 at 4:33 am
Hey now South Bend (#148). If that’s the kind of self-rightous attitude sanctioned in the “Kingdom of God,” why would we want any part of it? Christ himself would undoubtedly seek excommunication if that’s how his “members” treat each other.
Love and respect going out to John and his family, who are emerging into the kind of genuinely loving, blessed world that they themselves are working to create. For all of us.
151 wren // Sep 8, 2009 at 9:08 am
Dang. Sorry I missed this 3 months ago. Saw the link from Jana’s blog and read this today. I take it the court hasn’t happened yet?
This hard swing of the church this decade (which is getting stronger with Monson at the helm) is ironic because it is so much like the plan of Satan the church professes to be opposed to.
In many ways I miss the church. I still visit on occaison (fortunately in a much better and diverse ward) and listen to talks – the disparity between the talks 50 years ago (such as those on classic byu speeches podcasts) and those today show a church that used to value its members’ intellect more.
152 Dana Dahl // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:32 pm
The LDS temple rituals are a very complex and painful issue to work through for those of us who have been tricked into participating. I am late to this conversation and perhaps all that can be said has been said, but one comment seems to unify two very similar issues that I may have some validity in commenting.
Anijen said this:
Anijen // Sep 7, 2009 at 10:11 pm
“I do not tolerate murder and neither does the church. It wasn’t a temple covenant that murdered the Fancher party but overzealous misguided fearful members. It had nothing to do with the Temple ceremony and the church did not sanction it. Strawman.”
Perhaps what Anijen and many LDS do not see since they’re deeply entrenched on the inside is that it’s the mentality and blind obedience to such rituals as performed and coerced inside the LDS temple and culture that led to the willingness of otherwise sane men to line up 120 some men, women and children, deprive them of defense, and then shoot them in the head or back.
The men who participated were otherwise GOOD LDS MEN who were told to DO YOUR DUTY by a man who believed he was following the lead of their prophet. Just as many LDS do now, they go through various rituals and agree to acts and oaths that they may not understand but in practicing them frequently, set themselves up for inevitable obedience to any dictate that the LDS church sends down the pipeline.
This year that mandate is to fund and support bigotry and hatred toward the GLBT community. For many years it was a collective and institutionalized predudice against native Americans with the very twisted and messed up Indian Placement program. Prior to that it was against any women who dared express an idea that aligned with feminism.
It’s exactly the kind of rituals practiced in the LDS temple that creates the very monstors that committed the henious act at Mountain Meadows.
I live in a little town that was founded by John D. Lee. In some ways it’s the sweetest little Shangrila that one could ever wish to live in and in others I see the ease at which many of the locals could be incited to a similar riot.
Small towns can be like that but small towns, Mormonism, ignorance, bigotry, blind obedience and irrational fear are what lead to so many of the witchhunts that plague our society and nation.
The Mormons share a collective shame in the terrible act that was committed at Mountain meadows but the bigger question may be, could they be convinced again?
John’s vlog brought back some terrible memories for me. I started going to the temple in 1984 and was tricked into participating in those death rituals. The initiatories (a sort of hazing where one is naked and old ladies graze your body with their hands) was even more humiliating.
I went to six weeks of temple prep classes and never once were any of these freaky rituals mentioned. Nothing was taught in those classes that prepared me for the nauseating and frightening rituals performed in the temple. The social coercion to participate was the equivilant of being surrounded by a group of smiling Moonies that won’t let you leave until you drink the Koolaid.
From the first perplexing time I went through till the last about 15 years later, I never once had a sensation in the temple that was not permeated by anger, fear, anxiety and frustration.
That experience nearly made me suicidal many times in anticipation and the family and social pressure to continue was so great that I would sit for hours beforehand trying to psyche myself up for it. I felt guilt for every part of not feigning to love it as the other LDS members did.
The LDS church is a cult in every sense of the word.
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