exmo.com comes to WashPo

[ERCougar]

Wow...I expected much worse based on the comments here.

It sounds like she had a bad experience. She's likely embellishing a bit, although (1) it IS an op-ed piece and (2) she's not going for accuracy of details. Her issues with the church seem to revolve around gender issues and honestly facing its history. These are both legitimate gripes, and likely the only impression a non-member is going to leave the piece with--we're much more sensitive around here.

Regarding poor treatment of apostates by families--yes, I have seen this but yes, it's also rare. But it should be rare--in fact, it shouldn't EVER happen. How a parent shuns a child because of a difference of belief is completely beyond my understanding so I actually think it's somewhat appropriate that it's newsworthy. Second, if apostates aren't treated badly directly, they're arguably denigrated, if only generally, in Sunday School and the like. The apostate has attended years of these lessons and the inevitable result is that they assume that the same things are at least thought, if not verbalized, about them specifically by their loved ones and friends.

You need look no further than the average member's opinion of William Law to understand why an apostate might feel insecure about how others view them.

[ERCougar]

I investigated.

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowld...reporter_b3417

23:40 5K. She's probably not fat.

Of course, we're all way too progressive to care.

[DrumNFeather]

I know many apostates. Most of my siblings, half my extended family, a significant portion of my wife's family, a good chunk of my friends. If you tally it up, over a hundred anecdotes. Never seen the mistreatment. Frankly, I have many more instances of active church members treating other actives poorly for one reason or another than I've even heard third hand of apostates being treated poorly.

I think you've hit on something important here...

We have a tough enough time keeping the people that want to be in happy and un-offended. I'm sure bishops are constantly dealing with various feuds in their wards. How tiresome that must be.

It seems to me that it is a function of the human condition...and in certain groups it rears its ugly head. Unfortunately for us, it happens within our church group and as super pointed out, there is some irony that we struggle with being king to one another on a week to week basis (forget the apostates for a minute) despite the fact that we are a Christ centered church. We could all do more...for both the believer and non-believer alike.

Perhaps this is one area where the church justifies keeping the home and visiting teaching program. While some might find it to be annoying and forced friendship, perhaps the church is accutely aware that friendships between believers and non-believers are far more valuable in bringing them back to the fold than are their family relationships...as manifested by the apparent gazillion stories of shunning out there (and again I say, on both sides of it).

For me, it speaks to the true imperfection that is in all of us...and as a faithful, makes me glad that the atonement is there to help me with my imperfections.

[jay santos]

I investigated.

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowld...reporter_b3417

23:40 5K. She's probably not fat.

Of course, we're all way too progressive to care.

[UtahDan]

I think you've hit on something important here...

We have a tough enough time keeping the people that want to be in happy and un-offended. I'm sure bishops are constantly dealing with various feuds in their wards. How tiresome that must be.

It seems to me that it is a function of the human condition...and in certain groups it rears its ugly head. Unfortunately for us, it happens within our church group and as super pointed out, there is some irony that we struggle with being king to one another on a week to week basis (forget the apostates for a minute) despite the fact that we are a Christ centered church. We could all do more...for both the believer and non-believer alike.

Perhaps this is one area where the church justifies keeping the home and visiting teaching program. While some might find it to be annoying and forced friendship, perhaps the church is accutely aware that friendships between believers and non-believers are far more valuable in bringing them back to the fold than are their family relationships...as manifested by the apparent gazillion stories of shunning out there (and again I say, on both sides of it).

For me, it speaks to the true imperfection that is in all of us...and as a faithful, makes me glad that the atonement is there to help me with my imperfections.

Interestingly, the preliminary results of the survey conducted by the Open Stories Foundation which was released today support what you're saying. That is, it is more costly to be disaffected and stay then it is to simply leave.

http://whymormonsleave.com/2012/01/3...-faith-crises/ ( you have to download the document)

[DrumNFeather]

Interestingly, the preliminary results of the survey conducted by the Open Stories Foundation which was released today support what you're saying. That is, it is more costly to be disaffected and stay then it is to simply leave.

http://whymormonsleave.com/2012/01/3...-faith-crises/ ( you have to download the document)

That's not totally what I am saying, but it is interesting.

[YOhio]

On a similar note, today's NYT has a forum with the topic of "What Is It About Mormons?" Here are the post titles thus far:

A Male Dominated World
Can a Candidate be Too Perfect?
It May Look Good on Paper
There is a Dark Side to Mormonism
Mormon's Double Legacy


http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...-about-mormons

[Flystripper]

Yeah, I agree.

We have no idea how people responded to her and how she approached her issues. I certainly can imagine some folks advising just not to look at problematic material. That works for some people; it doesn't interest them. But given what my daughter has told me has been discussed in her religion classes (polyandry, etc.), I find it odd that no one acknowledged some problems weren't sympathetic.

BYU never once discussed thorny issues in any of my religion classes from 92-93 and then 96-99. Is this a change in approved curriculum or did she just get lucky with some of her teachers?

[Flystripper]

I wonder how much of this is spin though. You only seem to hear it from the exmo types.

In my own family, our experience was that the "apostate" basically left the family himself. He issued an ultimatum that basically said the rest of us had to leave if we were to have any association with him. He has since moved with no forwarding address provided to his parents or siblings. And yet he is very active in the exmo world now, a true fanatic, telling people the story of how his family "shunned" him. Which is complete bullshit.

That is admittedly just one anecdote. So I pose the question to CUF at large. How many of you know someone who has been shunned by their family for apostasy? In your own family or otherwise, it just has to be firsthand knowledge.

How many of our beloved board apostates here have been "shunned"?
I'm sure it happens, but most of what comes from that crowd seems to be 90% hyperbolic bullshit.

No shunning. Lots of guilting, weeping, and awkward moments, but I am a big boy and I can take it. I am pretty sure my parents love me too much to shun me. Nor would I shun them for their belief. All the supposed shunning by either side seems so petty TBH. Do these people not have meaningful relationships with each other?

[RobinFinderson]

On a similar note, today's NYT has a forum with the topic of "What Is It About Mormons?" Here are the post titles thus far:

A Male Dominated World
Can a Candidate be Too Perfect?
It May Look Good on Paper
There is a Dark Side to Mormonism
Mormon's Double Legacy


http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...-about-mormons

Good find. My quick responses:

A Male Dominated World, by Sally Denton
Ms. Denton is right about Mormonism -- it is a Male dominated faith that insists that its patriarchal structure comes from divine order. In the past, the exclusion of women from leadership was the norm in most places, so a flimsy explanation like, "This is just the way God intends it" was sufficient for most people. Presently, it just looks like discrimination, and the explanation for the practice is as flimsy as it ever was. Honestly, I just have a hard time understanding how women who were not born into the church could ever take Mormonism seriously.

But I think Ms. Denton takes the issue a bit too far. Catholicism, for example, is no different than Mormonism on this issue. Granted, Denton claims that Romney's leadership in the Mormon church is what makes an ostensibly Mormon issue a Romney issue, but I think this misrepresents what it means to serve in leadership in the Mormon church. In this, Denton builds her argument on the expectation that the reader will draw parallels between Mormon and Catholic church leadership, but from a Mormon cultural perspective, accepting a leadership calling is nothing like the process a catholic priest goes through to ascend up through the ranks.

What really matters is how Romney has personally internalized the Mormon patriarchal order, but I don't think there is really a good way to figure that out.

[RobinFinderson]

Can a Candidate Be Too Perfect? by Jana Riess
I was watching some clips of Mitt ripping Newt to pieces in the Florida debates, and it was good to see that he can be a real lion. My favorite Mitt quote was something to the effect, "If someone came into my office and said that we needed to invest a huge amount of our company's money into establishing a colony on the moon, I'd say to that person, 'You're fired.'" Jon Stewart did a fantastic segment on this last night. It was good to see that Mitt has some real fire in his belly. But this also goes to show that Mitt might really be 'too perfect.' It sounds insane, but Mormonism might be the most successful cultural incubator for generating model Republicans, and the rest of the party kind of resents that. Riess closes with a very nice summary that recognizes what I have been saying all along, that the biggest problem with Mitt is that he is a Mormon:

I wish that, in their desperate months-long quest for the "Not Romney" (someone! anyone!), my evangelical brothers and sisters would do Mormons the favor of looking beyond theological differences and cast their votes on the basis of record, public service and character. I have done that, and I have decided that if Mitt Romney makes it to the general election, I won’t be voting for him. But that’s not because of his religion, which I happen to share; it’s because of his conservative politics, which I don’t.

[RobinFinderson]

It May Look Good on Paper, by Ian Williams
In this piece, Ian fails to write anything informative. Really, the title says it all -- Mormonism looks good on paper, but... Ian fails to complete the sentence. Skip this one. It is a waste of time.

[Pelado]

It May Look Good on Paper, by Ian Williams
In this piece, Ian fails to write anything informative. Really, the title says it all -- Mormonism looks good on paper, but... Ian fails to complete the sentence. Skip this one. It is a waste of time.

I was expecting more substance in all of them. It seemed like each of them wrote their introductory paragraphs, and then ended the articles abruptly.

[Jacob]

Here's the worst line:





I feel bad for this lady. A couple of thoughts:

1. For as long as I can remember I knew that there was not a single non-LDS anthropologist, Egyptologist, etc. who considered the BOM to be literally true. It always shocks me that intelligent people get to college and still don't know this. It's amazing and sad and we need to tell our kids that there is no unbiased scientific support for the BOM story.

This is confounding me. What is the point? No non-mormon anthropologist or Egyptologist believes that the BOM is literally true? Well that's obvious. Nobody needs to be told that non-believers don't believe. It is a tautology. I seriously doubt that many intelligent people go to college believing otherwise.

Is it your position that the church actively teaches that non-believers believe the Book of Mormon to be literally true? That would be strange indeed.

Is it doctrine of the church to ostracize those of our family who have left the fold? If a member of a family leaves the church, do Bishops tell the remaining faithful family members to hate the one that has left?

I have never been taught that. It is sad when it happens.

Of course it is not. And I'd wager that family members rarely ostracize their inactive or non-believing siblings and children in such a manner.

[RobinFinderson]

There is a Dark Side to Mormonism, by Jane Barnes
Ms. Barnes does a much better job than Ian at raising at presenting a genuine issue -- in spite of superficial measures to meet the minimum standard to maintain its tax exempt status, the Mormon church asserts a huge amount of political force in this country relative to its size. Barnes points to several examples, but the Prop 8 issue and the defeat of the ERA are her too big ones, and in both examples, the Mormon church played a pivotal role in effecting/defeating policy that impacts a lot of non-Mormons. Barnes raises the question:

After Hurricane Katrina, Mormon trucks were the first to arrive. But what was a force for good after Katrina also has a dark side. When it comes to the social agenda, the Mormon Church does not respect separation of church and state. It has used its mobilizing genius to pursue political goals, and individual Mormons have obeyed like sheep...

...What if the church illegally used its money and influence to defeat Roe v. Wade or to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment while Romney was president? Would he protest from the Oval Office? Or would he be a sheep?

It is both a relevant and unfair question. The answer, if it could be answered, would be really useful information for a voter. But outside of the reader's mind, the question can't really be answered, and inside the reader's mind, the answer is most likely to reflect the reader's prejudice. The question is, however, for a lot of us, a key question, and it is interesting to see it in print.