Notes on the Saturday Morning Session

The 188th annual General Conference of the church has begun, allowing the brand-spanking-new old-as-spanking-dirt prophet Russell M. Nelson to officially address the membership as a whole for the first time in his new capacity as church president.  The most significant event, I suppose, was the "vote" to sustain the new prophet.  Second to that would be the induction of Gerrit Gong and Ulisses Soares into the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which was overshadowed by Nelson but probably more important—since they aren't white.  It's a little disappointing that these rather progressive choices for leadership positions are American, but at least it's a nod in the direction of diversity.

[Correction: Soares was born in Brazil.  So it's a slightly better nod in the direction of diversity than I originally thought.]

But anyway, here's a not-so-brief review of the Saturday sessions' most succulent nuggets of nonsense.

Please stand and vote only when asked to do so.

—Henry B. Eyring

Okay, so Eyring stated this twice before having the leaders sustain themselves by raising their right hands and then inviting the general membership to do the same.  It was mildly frustrating that he did not ask for opposing votes and prefaced his repeated request for sustaining votes with a directive to speak with local authorities to express any different opinions.

What I thought was more frustrating, however, was the method by which Eyring had the membership vote.  After the leadership on the stand had voted, the Melchizedek Priesthood went next, followed by the Relief Society, the Aaronic Priesthood, and those in the Young Women organization.  And after that, the entire membership, including everyone who'd already voted, was invited to stand and sustain their new leaders.  Eyring was extremely specific about the procedure and the order.

It's nice to see adult women being given precedence over young men who hold the Priesthood.  But still, men went first.  And even with the doctrinal superiority of Priesthood power over not having Priesthood power, it seems completely unnecessary to break people down into separate groups of descending importance, especially if after each section has voted, everybody gets to do it as a whole.  Why not just have the worldwide church vote as a unified body instead of reminding everybody about the subtle or not-so-subtle caste-like or not-so-caste-like structure of the lay members?  Argue all you want about the obsolescence or superficiality of the American Electoral College—this is infinitely more pointless, unless the point is to make sure everybody knows that the women are separate from and secondary to the men.

And Eyring was so deliberate about the specifics of the process.  Perhaps he wasn't quite as deliberate as Gary E. Stevenson's exhaustive explanation of the "apostolic interregnum" and the biographical glorification of Our Dear Leader from a little later in the session, but it was pretty damn deliberate.

This is the church in action.  This is pure religion.  This is the gospel in its true sense as we succor, lift, and strengthen those in spiritual and temporal need.

—M. Russell Ballard 

This is a pretty great sentiment.  If only it were how the church actually worked.  A church that succors, lifts, and strengthens those in spiritual need should not have any policy of disfellowshipping or excommunicating members.  Jeremy Runnells was invited to a church disciplinary council because of his CES Letter, which outlined a list of doctrinal and historical questions he had while experiencing a crisis of faith.  Rather than convene a disciplinary hearing, shouldn't the church have worked to answer his questions to strengthen his spiritual health?  

The November 2015 policy that specified disciplinary action is required when a member has entered into a same-sex marriage doesn't refer to succoring, lifting, or strengthening.  As much as I dislike the "hate the sin but love the sinner mentality," wouldn't trying to teach and fellowship a member in a gay marriage be more in line with this apostolic edict than deciding whether to excommunicate that member?

And, of course, with so much recent coverage of the march to protect LDS children from invasive private interviews with bishops and with so much scandal surrounding a former Missionary Training Center president admitting to a long pattern of sexual abuse, shouldn't a religion dedicated to succoring, lifting, and strengthening be jumping at the opportunity to address and rectify these problems instead of issuing press releases discrediting victims and restating its now-dubious zero-tolerance policy for abuse?  Shouldn't an apostle have greeted the marchers in Salt Lake City yesterday or publicly responded to the MTC rape scandal?

If you're going to pretend that your religion in its purest form is dedicated to addressing spiritual and temporal need, Ballard, your organization needs to put its money where your mouth is.

Spiritually, you are of noble birth, the offspring of the King of Heaven.

—Brian K. Taylor

This is just such a weird thing to say.

I mean, it's a nice idea.  We're important because we're children of God.  But...noble birth?  Nobles are nobles because they're born with an inherently higher status than others.  So who are the others?  Who isn't of noble birth?  Where are the serfs?  Even the third part of the host of Heaven cast out for following Lucifer were still, spiritually, born of the same parents we were.  If everybody's of noble birth then nobody's of noble birth.

Maybe focus on the children-of-God phraseology and don't try to get cute.  Besides, we shouldn't feel special because we're better than other people.  We should feel special because we're unique and valued.

This great war over divine identity rages fiercely as Satan's proliferating arsenal aims to destroy belief in and knowledge of our relationship with God.  Thankfully, we have been blessed with clear vision and understanding of our true identity from the beginning.

—Brian K. Taylor

Satan's proliferating arsenal aims to destroy knowledge of our relationship with God.  Think about that for a moment.  Then think about the Plan of Salvation.  The Plan of Salvation involved God sending us from the pre-existence through the Veil to Earth.  The Veil caused us to forget our divine origins, which is why so many billions of us have no clue who we are or why we're here.  So...that means that God is part of Satan's proliferating arsenal.  You heard it here first, folks.

We know from the scriptures that good things come from God and bad things come from the Devil (a paraphrasing of Moroni 7:12 and probably dozens of other verses).  So...what happens when God and the Devil seem to have congruent goals or methods?  What does that mean for the Mormon cosmological narrative?

And, of course, because of the Veil, the final sentence that I quoted above is completely false.  We don't have a clear vision of our true identity because God made us forget.  And we don't have clear understanding because...God made us forget.  If we had clear vision and understanding, we wouldn't need prophets or General Conferences. 

Repentance isn't His backup plan in case we might fail, repentance is His plan knowing that we will.

—Lynn G. Robbins

Yeah, the Mormon God is kind of a dick like that.  He knows that we're going to fail because the system he designed for us to reach exaltation is so shoddy and convoluted that he has to put all these contingencies in place to try to mitigate our limited capacity to achieve his ridiculous expectations.  What I want to know is, if God's work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39, apparently I'm feeling particularly scriptural today), since he's already failed a third of his children and it looks like an assload of us are seriously struggling with the Earthbound portion of our journey, what's God's plan for when he fails us?

Elder Nelson, at age 90, was fourth in seniority with two of the three senior apostles being younger in age than he was.  The Lord who controls life and death selects his prophet.  President Nelson at age 93 is in amazing health.

—Neil L. Andersen

Yes.  God kills his prophets when he needs a different one.  Or, rather, he kills people in the line of succession to avoid their unintended apotheoses.  Andersen is basically bragging about this?  

I wonder how Boyd K. Packer's family feels when an apostle explains that the reason Granddad never became prophet is because God killed him to make sure it would be somebody more useful.  Isn't it a miracle how all these old men died in a specific order so that the guy who is apparently the best choice could ascend to the throne?  I mean, the only indication that he's the best choice is because he's the one who didn't die, but that doesn't mean the logic is circular!

Also, wouldn't a benevolent God have a better system for apostolic succession in place so that he didn't have to strike his servants dead?  By this measure, even the Great and Abominable Church foreseen in the Book of Mormon—by which, of course, I mean the Roman Catholic Church, although that interpretation has waned in popularity over the generations—has a better method for selecting a leader.  I'd feel a lot more comfortable with a god who puts his surviving apostles into a room to select someone from their quorum to replace a deceased prophet than I do with a god whose representative explains that God controls his talent pool by controlling life and death.

A prophet is a watchman on the tower protecting us from spiritual dangers we may not see.

—Neil L. Andersen

This is a nice scriptural metaphor.  But the way he phrased this makes me desperately hope that when Nelson first addresses us from the pulpit, he'll give us his best harried Jon Snow smirk and announce, "Night gathers, and now my watch begins.  It shall not end until my death."

Anchoring our souls to the Lord Jesus Christ requires listening to those he sends.  Following the prophet in a world of commotion is like being wrapped in a soothing warm blanket on a freezing cold day.

—Neil L. Andersen

This kind of turn of phrase makes me miss the days of Neal A. Maxwell.  That man could write a sermon.  This man, not so much.  We're sitting through an address from Neil the Lesser.

Plus, I think his chosen metaphor implies isolationism.  You're not helping the world if you're wrapping yourself in a nice warm blanket and ignoring all the freezing around you.

We live in a world of reason, debate, argument, logic, and explanation.  Questioning why is so positive in so many aspects of our lives, allowing the power of our intellect to guide a multitude of choices and decisions we face each day.  But the Lord's voice often comes without explanation.  Long before academics studied the impact of infidelity upon trusting spouses and children, the Lord declared, "thou shalt not commit adultery."

 —Neil L. Andersen

I don't even know where to start with this completely baffling comment.  I mean, from Andersen, we've learned to expect opposition to things like reason and logic and especially explanation ("Give Brother Joseph a break" comes to mind).  But what I don't understand is that the best example he can give of a divine edict defying explanation is...thou shalt not commit adultery.

Is he saying that nobody realized that adultery is damaging to families until God spoke up on the issue?  Is he saying that prohibiting adultery challenged the zeitgeist?  Is he also suggesting that we actually need academics to do research to see if there are any negative consequences of marital infidelity?  Of all the ways he could have stressed the importance of following the prophet in the face of countervailing logic or evidence, this is so much more confusing than anything I'd expected.  He didn't even bother falling back on the old standard of The Word of Wisdom banning tobacco before we knew it was harmful.  He went with thou shalt not commit adultery.

Seriously.  I can't even begin to fathom what he thought he was accomplishing by framing his argument this way.

The prophet's voice, while spoken kindly, will often be a voice asking us to change, to repent, and return to the Lord.  When correction is needed, let's not delay.  And don't be alarmed when the prophet's warning voice counters popular opinions of the day.  The mocking fireballs of annoyed disbelievers are always hurled the moment the prophet begins to speak.

—Neil L. Andersen

A painting of Noah warning the wicked people during the construction of his ark was shown during this quote.  Wouldn't this have been a smarter thing to reference earlier?  But the allusion to Noah does strike me as a bit more...fearmongerish.  To a lesser extent, so did the next picture of Samuel the Lamanite being shot at while he preached doom and destruction on the city wall.

I suppose I am the kind of annoyed disbeliever he's referring to here.  But this is, in large part, exactly the attitude that makes me an annoyed disbeliever.  He's spending so much time trying to inoculate his church against contradictory opinions.  He writes us off as mocking, he calls us annoyed.  He has to characterize us negatively to drive home the point that we should be ignored.  He's trying to discredit outside voices and nurture his followers' biases against anything critical of the church.  

But...when correction is needed, let's not delay.  That means you guys, too, Andersen.  If your dogma is contributing to teen suicides and your organization is covering up rape, maybe it's time to stop dismissing this stuff as mocking fireballs and change, repent, and return to the Lord.  We're told so frequently that the church is perfect, but its leaders and members are not.  So let's not poison the whole well by using the institution to shield some of these imperfect members from public consequences to their actions. 

And don't be surprised if at times your personal views are not initially in harmony with the teachings of the Lord's prophet.  These are moments of learning, of humility, when we go to our knees in prayer. 

—Neil L. Andersen

Credit where credit is due—that was a pretty gentle way to remind everybody they need to fall in line.  This sentiment from Dallin H. Oaks would have gone full asshat.  

The surrender of our will to God's will is in fact not surrender at all, but the beginning of a glorious victory.

—Neil L. Andersen

 I'll just leave this here...again...

Some will try to overly dissect the prophet's words, struggling to determine what is his prophetic voice and what is his personal opinion.  In 1982, two years before being called as a general authority, Brother Russell M. Nelson said, "I never ask myself 'when does the prophet speak as a prophet and when does he not?'  My interest has been, 'how can I be more like him?'"  And he added, "My philosophy is to stop putting question marks behind the prophet's statements and put exclamation points instead."  This is how a humble and spiritual man chose to order his life.  Now, 36 years later, he is the Lord's prophet.

 —Neil L. Andersen

This would be hysterical if it weren't so slimy.

He's trying to address the issue of past leaders saying, doing, and enforcing awful racist, sexist, bonkers, contradictory, or otherwise problematic bullshit.  The common explanation is that since the prophet is an imperfect man who just happens to have been called of God, sometimes he's speaking as a man, so when Brigham Young said those things about "the negro race," he wasn't acting in his capacity as prophet, he was just being a run-of-the-mill asshole.  But Andersen's explanation twists the whole argument into some kind of Escher-esque forced-perspective spatially-impossible five-dimensional pretzel.  Allow me to demonstrate:

The apostle Neil L. Andersen, who may or may not have been speaking as a man, explained that the current prophet, who will be prone to speaking as a man from time to time, said something as a man before he was called as an apostle, in which he advised that we assume that everything the prophet says should be followed instead of worrying whether it's spoken as a man or as a prophet.

So a statement spoken by a man is endorsed by an apostle—who theoretically could be speaking as a man during this endorsement—whose Priesthood leader asked him—probably as a prophet but theoretically as a man—to speak as an apostle on this particular subject, and the evidence for why the endorsed statement is correct is that the man who spoke it then as a man has since become a prophet who can now speak to the church as a prophet but still sometimes as a man even though we don't know the difference and shouldn't bother to find out because that's an indicator of pride and unfaithfulness.

That makes sense, right?

The logic is impenetrable and impossible to sort out, and that's kind of the point.  Andersen is saying it doesn't matter whether what the prophet says is actually right, because as a good Mormon we should demonstrate our faith by following his direction anyway.  Who cares if fifty years from now the church decides Nelson was just being a crotchety old bigot and not a prophet?  The important thing is that you committed whole-heartedly to that awful, misguided thing the prophet counseled you to do!

That's fucking disgusting.

I mean, from Andersen's perspective, I kind of get it.  There's so much hideous history and damaging doctrine in the church annals that they can't safely parse every single statement from the past or the present—because they can't see the future and they don't know for sure what they'll need to walk back later.  And offering the membership the empowerment to discern prophetspeak from manspeak would open the door to more dissent, less power, and an inevitable and hopeless loss of control over the church's message.

But that doesn't make it okay.  If the prophet tells you to jump off a bridge, you'd better fucking figure out whether he's speaking as a man.  All members owe that to themselves.  

Stay tuned for the next session....