Baptizing the Brainwashed

Last week, I attended my nephew's baptism.  I didn't particularly want to see an eight-year-old initiated into a cult, but it was important to me to be present at landmark events for my sister's family.  But the baptism was actually even more uncomfortable for me than I'd predicted.

I spent the night on my sister's couch, and when my nephews woke up on the oldest one's birthday, I could hear them talking in hushed voices outside their bedrooms when they thought none of the adults were awake yet.  The birthday boy was excitedly telling his younger brother about what he was looking forward to the most—he theorized about which family members brought which gifts and what kind of frosting he should have his mom put on his cake.  He was going to be baptized that day, too, but he didn't mention it at all.  He expressed no excitement, apprehension, reverence, or awe concerning the covenant he was about to make with the all-powerful creator of the universe.

This, to me, was a pretty clear indication that he did not understand the importance of the commitment he'd be making.  Not through any fault of his own—he's a kid.  Kids get excited about all the trappings of birthdays.  But that also means kids don't really focus on the weightier matters that don't provide the same gratification.

At the chapel that afternoon, the ward held a joint baptism.  There was a girl who'd turned 8 a few days earlier, so the service was combined for the two families.  The other initiate was a restive, intractable goofball who struggled to focus on anything other than the large stuffed My Little Pony she carried with her.  (I wish I were making this up.)  She was traipsing around the relief society room in her baptismal whites with a bright purple stuffed pony tucked under her arm.  The pony's mane had glitter in it.

After the invocation and opening hymn, this girl's grandmother got up to give a talk.  She requested that both initiates sit front and center because she was about to speak about what baptism means and these two needed to hear it more than the adults.  My thought process was that they'd already interviewed with the bishop and they should know what baptism means way before the eleventh hour, but maybe we were humoring the grandmother.  But I was about to find out that, regardless of any bishop's interviews, these two kids were almost clueless about their in-progress rite of passage.

The grandmother began by directing a series of blatantly leading questions at her granddaughter and at my nephew—questions they still couldn't answer correctly.  She asked her granddaughter why she wanted to be baptized.  Clutching her pony and sucking her thumb, the girl replied, "because I want to."

"Is that what Jesus wants you to do so you can live with Heavenly Father forever?" her grandmother clarified.  "Isn't that what you want?"

I shit you not, this girl flat-out said, "No, because then I won't be able to live with Sparkles anymore."  She was, of course, referring to her stuffed animal.  People laughed.  They seemed to think it was cute.  I was grinding most of my molars down to nubs.  

Then the grandmother went on to try to explain more about baptism and what it means.  She involved my nephew a few times, asking him questions as well.  After an explanation of the age of accountability, she inquired of my nephew why he had to wait until he was eight to be baptized.  He precociously replied, "I don't know, but I know you have to be at least eight or older to be baptized."  This, of course, was honest and accurate, but demonstrated a complete lack of understanding regarding the underlying theological principles.

A little later in her discussion of baptism, the grandmother decided to quote some scriptures relating to the topic.  She cited Revelation 1:5:

And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood....

Immediately after the verse ended, the little girl squirming in the speaker's arms blurted, "That's weird."  And both her parents shushed her.  Nobody cared why the girl thought it was weird.  Nobody cared that she wasn't demonstrating any comprehension.  Nobody cared that she wasn't behaving with reverence commensurate with the gravity of the eternally binding divine contract she was about to sign.  Her childish priorities were a source of amusement and her nonexistent grasp of fundamental doctrine was something she was encouraged to keep to herself.  And when it was her turn to enter the baptismal font, the girl would have walked right into the water still clutching her beloved Sparkles if her mother hadn't managed to finally snatch the toy away.

How many more indications that these kids did not properly comprehend what they were doing would have been enough to make their families stop, think, and reconsider whether this was the right time for the ordinance?

Obviously, the fault for this nauseating display of brainwashing does not lie with the kids. My nephew and the girl in his ward couldn't really follow the importance and the scope of what was happening to them.  And I'm not convinced that much fault really lies with their parents either.  After all, what parents wouldn't baptize their kid at eight if they could?  You don't want your child wandering around purportedly knowing the difference between good and evil but not having the protection of the Atonement, would you?  And how humiliating would it be to have to tell people that you had intended to have your son baptized, but he clearly had no idea what that meant and you were going to defy the established Mormon Childhood Timeline by postponing the ordinance for a few years?  That poor kid would experience a similar social stigma to returning from missionary service without serving the full two years, only this would happen to him a decade early.

The doctrine and the culture of the church combine, then, to coerce parents into coercing their children into signing their lives over to a religion they don't yet understand.  High stakes of eternal consequences and a stifling atmosphere pressuring members to conform both mean that it would require an extremely rare level of audacity for a mother and father to avoid subjecting their children to this shameful ritual.  It's the beautiful rinse cycle of brainwashing and I got to see the results firsthand.  And it was even more unpleasant than I expected.

The True Message of God's Not Dead 2

I recently had the opportunity to view God's Not Dead 2, the sequel to 2014's masterpiece of thematic insight.  I was pleased to see that, not only had the storytelling and acting improved, but the first movie's legacy of accidentally making perceptive points outside of its professed purview had been preserved.

See, if you can get past the hamfisted drama of martyrdom, the contrived feelgood nature of the uber-Christian triumphs juxtaposed with the equally contrived woeful nature of the uber-Christian persecution complex, the fact that every character is defined first and foremost by religious beliefs alone, and the black-and-white atheist-and-Christian depictions of almost every single major player in this jumbled tale of tested faith, circlejerk vilification of different belief systems, manufactured threats, and implausible victories, there's actually a sparkling gem of wisdom a the bottom of the box of tasteless cereal—that blind fear begets unfavorable outcomes.

(That's not quite as long as the sentence I wrote last time.)

Just as a little background here, Melissa Joan Hart plays a high school history teacher named Grace Wesley.  One of her students, Brooke Thawley, asks a question in class about possible ideals that Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. may have shared with Jesus.  Miss Wesley fields the question pretty well and quotes a bit of scripture, while referring to the religious topic in more clinical, academic terms than she would outside of school.  Brooke's parents then file a lawsuit because Miss Wesley was supposedly proselytizing to public school students.  And a bunch of characters, many of which have returned from the first movie, are swept up in a frenzy of persecution paranoia as Miss Wesley and her charming atheist public defender Tom Endler lock horns in court with a bitter, scheming attorney whose last name is a homophone for Christianity's first murderer.  I think it's also worth noting that a TV role as the devil is among the most recognizable credits for the actor portraying that bitter, scheming attorney.

But now that we've covered the basics, let's delve through the first few malodorous layers of this thematic onion.

Case Study 1:  Brooke's Parents
When the legal team of Pete Kane visits the Thawley home to speak with Brooke's parents, the cunning lawyer pretty easily manages to coax them into filing a suit against Miss Wesley.  First, he mentions that colleges Brooke will be applying to the following year won't be able to resist her if she's a part of a "landmark constitutional case concerning the separation of church and state."  His associate also mentions the financial windfall from a successful settlement.  These are the two arguments that win over Brooke's parents.

See, Brooke's brother has recently died, and this has understandably rattled her. Her parents, however, advise her to move on, because she's a junior and it's her "make-or-break year" as far as her future options are concerned.  Her mother in particular, is adamant that she "stay focused."

State schools don't give legitimate educations, honey.  And you should feel
shame about grieving for your brother and not attending an Ivy League school.

Brooke admits later in the film that her parents think the lawsuit will get her into a better school and provide them the funds to pay for it.  Although the parents' doomsday scenario—Brook not attending an Ivy League university—isn't really much of a doomsday, it's their unwavering belief that their fear is becoming a reality that pushes them to not only embroil the family in a controversial court case, but also to steamroll their daughter's wishes and, in the process, utterly disregard her emotional distress over her brother's passing.

Case Study 2:  Brooke Thawley Herself

Pretty much everything that happens in this movie is a result of Brooke's struggle to cope with whatever happened to her brother.  Early on, she approaches her history teacher, Our Noble Martyr Grace Wesley, and asks her how she always remains so positive.  Since this is in a coffee shop and not a public school, Grace answers honestly that her faith in Jesus gives her hope and strength.  While pondering on that later, Brooke learns that her departed brother was a devout Christian and she begins reading his personal Bible.  This is what led her to ask Miss Wesley in class about the similarities in non-violent approaches between Jesus and other historical figures.  This is what gets everybody in trouble.

It seems that Brooke is driven by a fear that she'd let her brother slip away from her and that she hadn't appreciated him or loved him the way she should have when he was alive.  "The only thing that I really want," she tells Miss Wesley in the coffee shop, "is five more minutes to tell my brother how I really felt about him."  She later confides in a complete stranger (Chinese Exchange Student from the first movie) that, while studying and embracing her brother's religion, she felt like she was given those five minutes.  Equating Christianity with her relationship with her brother, she becomes an ardent advocate of her new faith.  Armed with the sword of righteousness and scared that her compassionate teacher was becoming a martyr, Brooke bursts into the courtroom to loudly inform the judge that Miss Wesley hasn't anything wrong.  She manages to then get herself called as a witness and accidentally reveals the religious discussion in the coffee shop to the jury.  The sinister lawyer Kane jumps on this as evidence that Grace Wesley was being dishonest and really had been trying to encourage students to join her faith.  Brooke later admits that, because of her testimony, she'd "ruined everything."

I'm not afraid of interrupting public court proceedings to inject my opinion,
but apparently I was afraid to privately tell my brother I loved him.

And none of this would have happened if she hadn't been so terrified that her brother didn't know she loved him.  Her fear may not be as irrational as some of the other fears that fuel characters' foolish decisions, but odds are that her brother knew she cared for him.  Especially considering how emotionally tone deaf the parents are, the love between the two siblings was probably the purest, most rewarding relationship in the Thawley household.  Had Brooke not been so deeply afraid that she hadn't shown proper appreciation for her brother, Miss Wesley would never have been suspended without pay and put on trial for her supposed proselytizing and we'd have never had this masterpiece of modern cinema.

Case Study 3:  Reverend Chill Dude

A peripheral protagonist here is the same reverend who accepted Kevin Sorbo's dying confession at the end of the first movie.  He's called as a juror for Miss Wesley's trial and, adhering firmly to the theme of the film, he becomes convinced that he's the vital finger in the dam that's holding back the flood waters of religious persecution.  So certain is he of his role in preventing the doom of Christianity that he refuses to leave the jury when he develops a stabbing pain in his side because he "really needs to be here."  He endangers his own health by avoiding treatment for a potentially life-threatening condition and even collapses on the floor of the courtroom—all because he fears the worst and acts as though his predictions are certainties instead of conjectures.

Reverend Chill Dude also becomes wrapped up in a side story about some nameless government entity requiring an undetermined number of pastors in an unspecified geographical area to hand in their recent sermons for undisclosed nefarious purposes.  This story unfolds in three scenes, the first of which involves a group of clergymen discussing the impending crisis at a luncheon.  The second is Reverend Chill Dude's receipt of the subpoena.  And the third is Reverend Chill Dude's bold refusal to comply with the subpoena.

The subplot begins with some kind of senior priest (played by the late, great Fred Dalton Thompson) explaining the "subpoena that just came down demanding that [they] submit copies of [their] sermons from the last three months for review."  The assembled men of the cloth then discuss the implications of this revelation.  One of them asks, "So now the government can determine what we can and can't preach at our churches?"  And the voice of reason, a character who is tellingly not even given a name, pipes up with, "Let's not overreact.  I'm sure there's no ill intent here."  Fred Dalton Thompson doesn't appear to give the voice of reason even a moment of consideration.

Not overreacting is for suckers!
And for people who haven't starred in seminal police procedural dramas!

After a bit of doom and gloom, another voice of reason—who is also unnamed—references the silent majority that can successfully oppose such gratuitous overreaches of government.  Reverend Chill Dude hops on the Fred Dalton Thompson bandwagon and steamrolls both voices of reason, explaining that pressure today will be persecution tomorrow.  When asked for reasons, Reverend Not-So-Chill-Anymore answers, "Speed of change, viciousness of the opposition."  He speaks of making enemies because powerful people oppose the gospel and declares, "Whether we admit it or not, we're at war."  And in a matter of minutes, we've gone from an ill-defined subpoena to an armed conflict.  The war may be metaphorical, but the rhetoric used closes these clergymen off to the complexity of the situation and reinforces the ideas that there are two clearly drawn sides that can never coexist peacefully.  In the context of this narrative, that may be true, but it's a uselessly naive oversimplification when this mentality is applied to the real world.

But what are the consequences of Reverend Chill Dude and his buddies entrenching themselves further into their spiritual warmongering?  What is it that their shared fears make them do?  We don't get a conclusion to this storyline (I'm assuming it may continue in the third film), but what we do see is a macho posturing and a stretching of the ideological gulf between the two sides of this fictional battle.  When Reverend Chill Dude turns in not his sermons but a written statement explaining why he refuses to hand them over, he has a tense little standoff with whoever's manning the desk at the district attorney's office.   Apparently offended by the reverend's refusal to comply, this man looks him straight in the eye and, with overwrought menace, warns him, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."

So when one group involved in a conflict of ideas decides to treat it like a war, even if they're justified in feeling attacked, it can help escalate that conflict.  It's also interesting that this is the only scene in which we see this district attorney or legal clerk or whoever he is.  We don't know who he is or why he seems so dead set on making the reverend suffer.  Maybe if we could see more of his backstory and hear his reasoning, we would understand his apparent enmity for religion better and we might realize that he's not as villainous as he appears.  Maybe he's held just as captive by his own fears as the pastors are, and maybe that's what helped this whole stupid dispute ramp up to this oxygen-starved elevation.

Case Study 4:  Pete Kane

Kane is the lawyer who's rabid to see Grace Wesley burned at the stake for daring to mention Jesus in a public school (okay, maybe that's a little bit of exaggeration on my part).  He is brazenly and unabashedly opposed to Christianity.  When he convinces the Thawleys to file the lawsuit, he references the case's importance because of other children "being subjected to [Christians'] repressive belief system."  His legal opponent, Tom Endler, tells Grace at one point that, to Kane, "your beliefs are like a disease whose time has come and gone, sort of like small pox or polio or the Plague."  It is repeatedly and obviously established that Pete Kane has nothing but contempt for Christianity.

But, cleverly, he's the opposite side of the same coin as our more pious characters.  He makes the same kinds of ridiculous assertions and paints the same kinds of apocalyptic caricatures as the Christians do...but from his own twisted perspective.

The first example of this is his opposition to a particular juror during voir dire.  He removes a possible juror from the pool on the sole basis of his status as a former Marine because, in his mind at least, this would make the man a devout Christian who would be biased in favor of the defendant.

All Marines are Christians and all Christians are incapable of impartiality:
the gospel according to Pete Kane, Esq.

But, because Kane is so convinced that the Marine will spell disaster for his case, he unwittingly lets an even more disastrous candidate into the jury—Reverend Chill Dude.  By nixing the Marine, he uses up his final challenge so that when he tries to remove the ordained minister, he's stopped by the opposition counsel, who successfully reminds the judge that Kane has exhausted his peremptory challenges and that removing a Christian juror is discriminatory.  Kane is then stuck with Reverend Chill Dude, someone decidedly even more pious than the dreaded lay Marine.

In his opening argument a few scenes later, Kane clearly reveals the terror that fuels his ardor.  "If we grant Miss Wesley the right to [preach in the classroom], and by extension, everyone else, to violate the law based soley on our own private beliefs," he tells the jury, "then our society will crumble.  I believe that.  So implore you, please do not set this precedent.  Do not.  The future of our republic depends on it."  Maybe if this lawyer would take a deep breath and reflect with a little less fear, he'd realize that Miss Wesley answered a question posed to her from a student and did so with surprising deftness considering the awkwardness of the setting.  Maybe he'd realize that if she'd intended to preach she would have answered the question much differently.  Maybe he'd realize that her lifestyle is not so incompatible with his and that the strength of her beliefs does not lead down a logical, inevitable path toward the destruction of the republic.

Case Study 5:  Grace Wesley

As the hero of our story, Grace is the only major character who emerges triumphant despite brushing with the same tendencies to poison her decision making with panic.  An early scene in the teacher's lounge identifies her as an endlessly optimistic person, and that could be the characteristic that allows her to escape the clutches of fear and avoid shooting herself in the foot the way everybody else seems to.

She does, admittedly, shoot herself in the foot a little bit by refusing to apologize for what she said in the classroom—but this isn't motivated by fear.  It's motivated by philosophical purity and conviction and, of course, by her love for Jesus.

I'd rather embrace a false dichotomy and hold my head up high
than embrace my head and hold a false dichotomy up high...or something like that.

Grace's mastery of the fear so many others fall prey to is showcased in the climactic scene in which her own lawyer appears to turn against her in the courtroom.  Endler goes on what is clearly intended to be a heroically ironic rant about how "in the name of tolerance and diversity," the jury should hold Grace Wesley accountable for her actions because deeply held religious beliefs that color the way people act in the public square mean that these public servants are clearly untrustworthy.  It's designed to be a powerful illustration of the absurdity of those who oppose Christianity, and perhaps it's supposed to serve as some clever reverse psychology for the jury as well.  But in order for Endler to make this argument, he first has to demonstrate that Grace believes she has a personal relationship with God—a feat he accomplishes by bullying her into sharing, under oath, a personal story she'd told him in private about hearing Jesus's literal voice speaking to her.

Sobbing on the stand and insisting that the jury won't believe her—and also not privy to the supposedly brilliant bit of lawyering Endler is doing—Grace finally manages to push her fears of ridicule and scorn and unemployment aside to tell the truth.  Had she behaved as if the negative consequences of telling the truth about her spiritual experience were set in stone, she'd have clammed up and Endler's gamble of arguing against his own client in the courtroom would have been a complete failure.  For Grace Wesley, not only was limiting the credence she gave her fear the reason she was victorious, but doing the opposite would have guaranteed her defeat.

And that is, perhaps, the tragic genius of God's Not Dead 2.  Because as it tells this tale of the damage we can all do to our own lives when we entertain our worst anxieties and act upon our deepest dreads, it completely fails to understand its own point.  Because of course the filmmakers weren't telling a cautionary tale about jumping to conclusions and treating fear like fact.  They were telling a cautionary tale about the persecution of piety and the suppression of faith.  The continuation of the warlike metaphors from the first movie speaks to their lack of perspective to the point of celebrating the absence of their own objectivity.

So terrified are Brooke's parents that she might not get into a top-tier university with a solid scholarship that they try to deprive her of her legitimate grief and wind up widening the emotional and religious gulf in their parent-child relationship.  So convinced is Brooke that her brother didn't know how she felt about him that she almost single-handedly starts a community uproar over the role of religion in public service and then she nearly torpedoes her beloved teacher's case with her testimony.  So paranoid of persecution is Reverend Chill Dude that he stops being chill, refuses to listen to reason, endangers his own health, helps escalate the conflict between the religious and the irreligious, and probably causes himself some legal woes down the road.  So convinced is Pete Kane that his anti-Christian vendetta is the direly required salvation of democracy that he makes some errors in judgment that do not befit his character's level of legal acuity.  And Grace Wesley comes so close to crumbling beneath the weight of myopic horror herself, only to escape unscathed when she sticks to her guns, does what she feels is right, and doesn't have to compromise her principles.

The moral of the story then, dear filmmakers, is that we don't need to spend so much time painting the landscape around the modern-day American Christian with the color palette of Mordor.  Sure, there are jagged rocks and slippery slopes here and there, but there are no volcanoes, there are no patrols of hideous orcs, and there are no relentless all-seeing personifications of undying evil.  Maybe we should keep our fears in check as best we can, at most let them passively inform our behavior as we do what we believe is right, and stop treating people who don't share all of our principles like enemy combatants.  Because—let's be honest—there are so many better movies we could be filming right now.

Tender Mercies

I've been going through an interesting transition over the last few months. The center where I was employed was shut down, laying off me and every one of my coworkers.  During the closing months before our final day, we all were scrambling to find new jobs.  Only three of us, including me, were able to do so before our last day of employment.  What I found was basically the same job for a better company with nearly identical pay and better hours.  I also had about a month off between jobs, during which time I received severance equivalent to a paycheck for a greater length of time than I'll actually be unemployed.  Obviously, it sucked to be laid off, but when something negative with so much of an upside happens, I find myself thinking about the "tender mercies of the Lord" mentioned by Nephi and popularized by David A. Bednar:

As we learn in these scriptures, the fundamental purposes for the gift of agency were to love one another and to choose God. Thus we become God’s chosen and invite His tender mercies as we use our agency to choose God.

Had identical events happened to me while I was a faithful member of the church, I'd have credited them to the "tender mercies" God bestows upon us.  I may have even somewhat callously concluded that the reason I have a comparable job lined up when the majority of my coworkers do not was due to my faithfulness in the gospel.  But, in retrospect, those kinds of attitudes make no sense.

It reminds me of the "faith not to be healed" article in which Bednar basically explains that the reason the Priesthood doesn't work is because the Priesthood works.  If that's acceptable reasoning, it sounds like any intersection between the gospel and daily life produces the same kinds of results as no intersection at all.  Whether we're looking at the cause (a Priesthood blessing that doesn't necessarily heal) or at the result (a favorable situation that wasn't necessarily engineered by God), both ends of the Blessing Production Line display the same level of efficiency we'd get from not having a production line.  My employment situation is exactly the kind of thing I'd consider a tender mercy but for the fact that I'm a filthy apostate who's essentially voided his covenants and blessings, so this never should have happened to me, right?  The whole thing appears to be a crapshoot.  It leads me to several possible conclusions:

1. Being eligible for tender mercies does not require belief or the keeping of any commandments or covenants.
2. There is no such thing as a tender mercy of the Lord and some people just get lucky.
3. My specific situation did not involve a tender mercy and I just got lucky without divine intervention.

All of these really point to the complete superfluity of God's true church—at least when it comes to day-to-day life.  It obviously can still be argued that I'm screwed as far as my postmortal life is concerned, but as far as getting by in our second estate, why do we need the church?

If I can get tender mercies while actively opposing the church, why should Mormonism be a necessary component of my life?  If there's no such thing as a tender mercy, then why bother being a temple-going, tithe-paying member if it comes down to dumb luck anyway?  And in regards to the third possible conclusion, why should I spend all that time being a pious Mormon if I can still get this lucky without all those blessings I supposedly need?

Obviously, my assessment of all this is that there are no tender mercies and that most of the things that are claimed to be such are really the results of luck, coincidence, charity, or hard work.  In my case, I was really fortunate to find the job opening and really fortunate with the time frame of my application, and the reason I got the position was because I interviewed well and because my resume is stronger than that of most of my competitors for the slot (not that my resume is really anything to brag about in most contexts).

But the bottom line is that, just like a Priesthood blessing that doesn't heal its recipient, a tender mercy is an imaginary thing.  Whatever was going to happen is still going to happen, regardless of Mormon theology's claimed role in determining the outcome of the situation.  And, to me, it's fascinating—if somewhat predictable—the way a diametrically different perspective on the same kinds of situations changes our interpretations of the way events unfold.

Some Things that are Useful are Not True

One of my sisters has recently started asking me questions about my disaffection from the church.  Our discussion got to the point at which she asked me what doctrines I disagreed with.  I gave her a pretty long list, and she was surprisingly willing to go through them one by one in as much detail as you can manage in a text message conversation.  She agreed that many of my points were valid, although she stuck up for the church on a few others.  One thing that really shocked me was that, when we were talking about the Book of Mormon and how I think so many of the stories sound blatantly made-up, she volunteered a criticism. 

Ether.

She didn't understand how, when the armies of Coriantumr and Shiz were destroying each other, nobody on either side loved their families enough to flee from the violence.  She introduced the absurdity of Ether into the conversation, not me.  It was a fruitful debate and I think I did a decent job of demonstrating that my disgust for church doctrines is an entirely separate issue to how I feel about the average Mormon, so she was curious rather than offended.

A few weeks later, she followed up by email to "stick up for the Jaredites," at least for the first part of their chronicle.  She explained that she loves the story of the Jaredite journey to America because she sees it as a metaphor for life.  She told me that, because life is so hard, she likes the idea that God guides us, provides us light and direction during our journey, and greets us once we've arrived safely.  She finds comfort in the Book of Ether when she feels overwhelmed.

My sister has a lot going on.  She has three kids, some of whom have some unusual medical needs, and she's two states away from her nearest parent or sibling.  She and her husband, of course, have plentiful demands on their time from the church and they have that special brand of existential anxiety that comes from being raised as devout Mormons.  I think she feels overwhelmed more frequently than the average person does.  So it makes complete sense to me that she would like the metaphor of the Jaredite journey and that she would turn to the scriptures for comfort.

This brings to mind a kind of corollary to Boyd K. Packer's infamous assertion that "some things that are true are not very useful":  some things that are useful are not true.

If Ether keeps my sister from feeling like she's drowning, terrific.  But that's not the same thing as Ether being a true record of a true religion.  Santa Claus has helped countless parents convince their children not to misbehave in December.  Santa Claus is useful, but not true.  Ether may be useful, but it's not true.

If the Jaredite story is helpful to my sister, I'm not about to send her everything wrong with the Book of Mormon.  I'm not going to say, "Hey, look, this is all a lie, where can you turn for peace, where is your solace, and where is your god now?  Bwahaha."  That would be heartless.  But I'm tempted anyway because I'm convinced that an enormous portion of her problem stems from the church.  She wouldn't need the Book of Mormon to help her not feel overwhelmed if Mormonism hadn't overwhelmed her in the first place.

There is a huge amount of responsibility placed on us as members of the LDS church.  We're not just expected to adhere to an impossible set of stringent commandments, but we're also expected to be responsible for other people's salvation.  The missionary effort is literally about saving souls—if you love God's children, which you should, you need to be inviting them to come unto Christ.  It's part of the mission of the church to spread the gospel.  If we don't do our visiting teaching (or ministering, I suppose), we're committing sins of omission by not working hard enough to perfect the saints.  And if we're not attending the temple regularly, we're not doing our part to redeem the dead.  And, as a mother, my sister now feels responsible for the tenuous eternal fates of her three boys, whom she's raising in a world that is increasingly at odds with what she believes is right and moral.  Raising kids is expensive, and so is home ownership.  She and her husband are commanded to pay ten percent of their income to the church and the kinds of stress it would cause if tithing were to stretch their budget too thin....

Of course she feels overwhelmed.  And that's by design.  The apostles encourage this.

In April 2014's General Conference, David A. Bednar talked about the burdens and responsibilities that we bear and used the metaphor of a truck stuck in the snow.  The tires wouldn't grip until the driver piled wood in the bed of the truck to add weight.  "It was the load of wood that provided the traction necessary for him to get out of the snow, to get back on the road, and to move forward," Bednar said.  Moral of the story—more burdens are good.  Take on more than you think you can handle and it'll be better that way.

In April 2017's General Conference, Henry B. Eyring told the Priesthood that "it’s natural to feel some inadequacy when we consider what the Lord has called us to do."  Moments later, he concluded, "So if you feel a little overwhelmed, take that as a good sign. It indicates that you can sense the magnitude of the trust God has placed in you."  Moral of the story—your responsibilities are insane.  Feeling overwhelmed is actually a good thing, so just accept it.

The metaphor of the Jaredite journey may be, on its surface, useful.  But it's not true.  And it's only useful because other untrue things have made its uses necessary.  Life can be overwhelming.  But no person should have to remain in a constant state of feeling inadequate and overwhelmed.  No benevolent god or compassionate religious organization should cultivate and encourage that kind of culture.  What we all need are foundations in groups and institutions that will not lie to us or manipulate us.  What we all need are moments of peace in between the noise of natural responsibilities.  What we all need are things that are both true and useful.

Take that, Boyd.

Notes on the Sunday Evening Session

Nelson really has this Conference jam-packed with goodies for the members.  During this session, he announced seven new temples as well as a new "ministering" program that will replace home teaching and visiting teaching.  He seems to be taking full advantage of his first hundred days in office, although I'm pretty sure that's not a rule of thumb for prophets the way it is for presidents.  It's easy to see how some of these changes may energize the membership, and if the numbers reported on LDS.org yesterday are any indication, he's wise to prescribe a shot of adrenaline to the church. 

But here are some of the doctrinal insights shared during this final session of Conference:

We have made the decision to retire home teaching and visiting teaching as we have known them.  Instead, we will implement a newer, holier approach to caring and ministering to others. We will refer to these efforts simply as "ministering."  Effective ministering efforts are enabled by the innate gifts of the sisters and by the incomparable power of the priesthood.

—Russell M. Nelson

I know I've made points about sexism several times in the last couple of days, but this might be the most important indicator during this conference about how women aren't actually equal in the gospel.

The sisters have innate gifts.  The men have incomparable power.  And that's straight from the prophet himself.  Just look at the differences in the language.  "Incomparable power" is a soaring, superlative phrase.  "Innate gifts" is respectful and complimentary, sure, but it doesn't have the altitude given to the men.

I bear my own witness that these adjustments [to the elders quorums and the home and visiting teaching programs] are examples of the revelation that has guided this church from its beginning.  They are yet more evidence that the Lord is hastening his work in its time. 

—Jeffrey R. Holland

The Lord has been hastening his work since the middle of the nineteenth century.  We're closing in on the two hundred year mark.  When is he going to hurry up and hasten for real?

Simple as [the planned policy of quarterly interviews between bishops and ministering companionships] sounds, my friends, those interviews are absolutely crucial.  Without that information, the bishop will have no way to receive the information he needs regarding the spiritual and temporal conditions of his people. 

—Jeffrey R. Holland

Really?  The bishop will have no other way to find out what the spiritual and temporal status of his ward is?  I mean, he could also ask other people.  Realistically, bishops have a lot to do, so it would be kind of unfair to expect him to hunt everybody down to ask about any important spiritual or temporal needs.  

But...didn't the Lord provide a way for bishops to receive important information directly?  I believe it's called revelation?  Bishops can receive revelation for those in their stewardships?  You know, that long-established teaching of the LDS church?  Not ringing any bells?

Breaking news—the thing that the prophet spent fifteen minutes teaching about in the previous session of conference doesn't actually work because bishops have no other way to gather information other than having people report to him.

She replied, "We discovered that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the closest to Jesus Christ's original church than any other church we know of."

—Gérald Caussé

I call bullshit.

This was a mayor whom Caussé had been trying to convince to allow a new church building to be built in her city.  So she did some firsthand research, apparently, visited an LDS meetinghouse, talked with members and with people who lived next to the chapel, and then came back to Caussé and said this.

Come on.

First of all, it's really not that close, in my opinion.  Secondly, nobody alive has actually seen Christ's original church on account of it existing two thousand years ago, so how does this woman feel qualified to say something like this?  It just sounds like a faith-promoting story to make Mormons feel good about being Mormon (like the infamous "light in their eyes" anecdotes), and it sounds so much like that as to muffle any ring of truth.  The phrasing of her comment is so perfect.  What are the odds that this happened?  If it did happen, what are the odds that her reaction wasn't exaggerated upon retelling?

Where do we stand today in fulfilling these divinely appointed responsibilities?  First, with respect to Moses's restoration of the keys for the gathering of Israel, today almost 70,000 missionaries are spread across the earth, preaching his gospel to gather his elect.  This is the commencement of the fulfillment of the great and marvelous work Nephi foresaw among both the Gentiles and the House of Israel.

—Quentin L. Cook

They're teasing the numbers again, kind of like when the church essay on polygamy said that Joseph Smith married a girl who was "several months shy of her fifteenth birthday" to avoid saying she was fourteen. 

The number of full-time missionaries in the report posted online yesterday is 67,049.  Yes, that is almost 70,000.  But when most people approximate a number like that, they'd probably round down to either 65,000—or 67,000 if they're being a little more precise.  And I don't think precision is what Cook is worried about because the number of missionaries is dropping.  He needs the number to sound high, so he rounds up to "almost 70,000" so it isn't so apparent how far the numbers have plummeted since 2014's peak of 85,147.  This is the third consecutive year that number has decreased.

Like many church critics expected and like some apostles did not predict, lowering the age of missionary service resulted in only a temporary swelling of the ranks.  The bubble has burst, Cook.  It's time to come back to reality.

It is commendable that non-consensual immorality has been exposed and denounced.  Such non-consensual immorality is against the laws of God and of society.

—Quentin L. Cook

Very true.  So what is God and/or his church planning to to with Joseph Bishop, who has admitted to committing non-consensual immorality while serving in a position of priesthood authority?  Nice nod to the MeToo movement, sure, but...remember that that old saying about monies and mouths?

In the Lord's church, the only culture we adhere to and teach is the culture of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The unity we seek is to be unified with the savior and his teachings.  As we look at the primary purposes of the church, they are but based on equality before the Lord and following the culture of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 —Quentin L. Cook

I really like that he denounced tribalism a second before this.  But the church really isn't based on equality.  The Bible has a lot of stuff about how Israel is God's favorite people and the Gentiles are lame.  The Book of Mormon parrots that as well and adds its own Nephite/Lamanite dichotomy.  Plus there's also that pesky teaching that God uses dark skin color to signify wickedness.  And I could get into the sexism stuff again but I think we're all tired of that.

The point is, the LDS church has a feeble grasp on the concept of equality.  And while American culture is almost certainly less unified than Mormon culture, all is not exactly well in Zion either.

With respect to missionary work, the principal qualifications for baptism are humbling oneself before God and coming forth with a broken heart and a contrite spirit.  Education, wealth, race, or national origin are not even considered. 

—Quentin L. Cook

Another qualification is denouncing your parent if he or she is currently in a same-sex relationship.  Look how egalitarian we are!

In the sacred sealing room, the eternal marriage ordinance is the same for everyone.  I love the fact that the couple from the humblest background and the couple from the wealthiest background have exactly the same experience.

—Quentin L. Cook 

Wow, it sure wasn't the same for everyone forty-one years ago.  That's because before 1978, the eternal marriage ordinance didn't happen if you were black.  I mean, it's great that this is no longer in effect, but it takes a special kind of arrogance to preach to the world that your organization is a big welcoming tent that treats everyone the same when you have so much racism in your past, so much sexism and homophobia in your present, and your progress has lagged behind American society in a way that should be humiliating for an organization claiming to represent a benevolent god.

  

There has been a significant increase in the number of worthy adult temple recommend holders for many years.  Limited use recommends for worthy youth have increased dramatically over the last two years.  Clearly, the faithful core membership of the church has never been stronger.

—Quentin L. Cook

I can't believe it took me until the final minutes of the closing session of General Conference to dust this old classic off, but...

Half-seriously, maybe the next person shouting from the audience during Conference shouldn't yell "Opposed!" or "Stop protecting sexual predators!"  Maybe that person should yell "Citation needed!"  Not really though.  The sexual predator thing is a much more urgent issue that the church needs to fix.  We can worry about fudged numbers later.

But this was strikingly similar oral excrement to Cook's performance in General Conference two years ago, when he explained that not very many people resign and that "the Church has never been stronger."  He was, perhaps a little less defensive this time, but it was still a bold assertion easily challenged by anecdotal evidence.  And it was an assertion that can't be proved or disproved by any old schmuck off the street.  Who has the statistics for the number of adult and youth temple recommends?  The same organization who has the church financial records!

By which I mean:  not you.

You just have to take his word for it.  Because he's been totally honest in the past and has no reason lie, so I'm sure the numbers that he didn't give us are completely accurate.

One interesting note is that he seems to be retreating from his 2015 comment a little, because here he's focusing on the "faithful core membership of the church" as opposed to the church membership as a whole.  Maybe the apostles are finally starting to see the writing on the spreadsheet.

Our message to the world is simple and sincere.  We invite all of God's children on both sides of the veil to come unto their savior, receive the blessings of the holy temple, have enduring joy, and qualify for eternal life.

—Russell M. Nelson 

Well...not all of God's children.  Not the disfellowshipped or excommunicated ones who've apostatized or criticized the church or decided to marry someone who happens to share the same kind of genitals, right?  And not the younger ones who won't denounce their parents' homosexual lifestyles, right?

But all of God's other children are welcome.  At least, as of 1978. 

 

And there you have it.  It was a surprisingly eventful series of broadcasts.  General Conference is usually referred to as a historic event, and this one at least may have lived up to the usual hype.  It will be interesting to see how the church adapts to the changes Nelson announced and it will be fascinating to see if he continues pushing more changes to try to keep the "faithful core membership of the church" engaged.