NY Times Article on Dissaffected Swedish Area Authority

[CardiacCoug]

It's shocking to me people leave the LDS church for such reasons. It's like, "Well if he had not molested 14 year old girls I could have believed he translated the Book of Mormon from a gold book shown him by an angel."

Sure, it's not the facts, rather it's the fundamentally dishonest nature of the Church's approach to its history that bothers people.

[SeattleUte]

You know, I had this same thought as I mulled over this thread while running home from work tonight. I was kind of wondering why certain facts make people lose/question their testimony/belief/faith. If facts made you crumble, what made you believe in the first place? There is no factual reason to believe in the church -- most of its seems preposterous if that's the only way you're going to look at it. And I basically had the exact some thought you just outlined here -- people would have believed a guy who said he translated scriptures from golden plates that he couldn't produce and claimed visitations from God and angels, but now because of marriage to teenagers he's no longer what he claimed? I'm interested in this.

Cardiac alluded to this a while ago. When I was in college my faith was fast dissipating and I read an interview with Sterling McMurrin in the Seventh East Press, an on campus publication by BYU students. The interview prompted the school to banish the press, burn it down, scatter the type, etc., in a metaphysical way. Anyway, the interview was wide ranging, very articulate, and fabulous, but McMurren's whole thesis was reducible to essentially, "Look, Book of Mornom anacronysms, the Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith's lechery, etc. didn't affect my faith; I just decided at one point that the world simply doesn't work the way Joseph Smith said it does." That made complete sense to me. In time I also reallzed that this realization is actually what being modern and indeed even being an American is all about.

McMurrin was also concerned about the LDS church's dishonesty. But as he put it, his specific concern was about the way the Church leaders treated members like "babies".

Blake Ostler did the interview. It's on Sunstone or Dialogue's web site.

[SeattleUte]

Sure, it's not the facts, rather it's the fundamentally dishonest nature of the Church's approach to its history that bothers people.

I don't think so for folks like this guy.

[wuapinmon]

What's shocking is how yall're are shocked by why people leave the Church. Come off it already about judging their reasons. Each convert comes to the Church with their own reasons for believing; some part of the narrative attracts them to the ideas and they register with them. When they encounter something that subverts the wholesomeness or the logic of the history or some unknown aspect of a person's behavior that they would find deplorable in anyone else, it can cause a rift.

All this self-righteous bullshit I'm reading in this thread is a bunch of fucking poppycock. You find out shit that you thought wasn't so about something and it makes you lose faith in it. My wife walks on water, but if I find out she's going down on the neighbor kid, I'm not going to just say, "well, I made a commitment to her years ago, might as well keep giving her my best years."

[SoCalCoug]

What's shocking is how yall're are shocked by why people leave the Church. Come off it already about judging their reasons. Each convert comes to the Church with their own reasons for believing; some part of the narrative attracts them to the ideas and they register with them. When they encounter something that subverts the wholesomeness or the logic of the history or some unknown aspect of a person's behavior that they would find deplorable in anyone else, it can cause a rift.

But if I don't criticize them, I'm afraid someone will think I'm condoning it.

[Moliere]

It's shocking to me people leave the LDS church for such reasons. It's like, "Well if he had not molested 14 year old girls I could have believed he translated the Book of Mormon from a gold book shown him by an angel."

You know, I had this same thought as I mulled over this thread while running home from work tonight. I was kind of wondering why certain facts make people lose/question their testimony/belief/faith. If facts made you crumble, what made you believe in the first place? There is no factual reason to believe in the church -- most of its seems preposterous if that's the only way you're going to look at it. And I basically had the exact some thought you just outlined here -- people would have believed a guy who said he translated scriptures from golden plates that he couldn't produce and claimed visitations from God and angels, but now because of marriage to teenagers he's no longer what he claimed? I'm interested in this.

While I get SUs point, I don't think he spent much time pondering it because the answer seems simple to me. Maybe he's just been out of the church too long to remember.

The church has created a framework by which it lives within. The framework is made out of commandments, teachings, etc. From a young age we are taught to live within the framework. Much of the framework contains what is nonsensible from a scientific/reason point of view, but because it's within the framework and we are taught those things work within the framework, it just works for the orthodox. Then we learn that church leaders, people that we've revered since age 3 and people that we sing songs about in sacrament meeting lived a life that was outside that framework. It cause us to make a choice. We can expand the framework to say what they are doing is okay (I think this happened with polygamy). We can explain what they did as an exception and something that God allowed or overlooked (think Nephi slaying Laban). Or we can realize that there's a lot of nonsensical stuff within the framework as well and shrink the framework to only include what is sensical to oneself (where I'm currently going) ultimately ending up at what might be the pure Gospel of Christ.

[Uncle Ted]

A Radio West podcast with the author of the article that is somewhat interesting...

http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/mormo...ef-digital-age

Some things mentioned (not a complete set of notes but things I thought were somewhat interesting):

- The author of the NYT article, Laurie Goodstein, seems to question about how Hans Mattsson can so naive when the church has made a lot of information available (e.g. the Joseph Smith papers, etc.).

- She seems to like Terryl Givens approach to the new doubters and quotes him again, as she did in her article. She also mentions again about his and his wife's unofficial firesides.

- Hans Mattsson is still a member of the church but seems to have "one foot in and one foot out". He did look around at other churches but felt most comfortable being mormon.

- He also interviews John Dehlin of the Mormon Stories Podcast, who gives his story again and talks about his mormon disbelievers survey. He later responds that he believes that like Jewish religion he believes that the church can respond by reforming a bit. Of course, reformed Judaism is pretty much a different jewish religion.

- Various callers mention their personal stories. One caller mentions that he simply doesn't literally believes in things like the BoM. The interviewer asks John Dehlin if folks like the caller can still go to the temple. John says it depends on how open the bishop is open to that and that bishops generally outside of Utah are more open (LOL).

- Interviews Philip Barlow, Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture, Utah State University, and author of A Thoughtful Faith. Also, interviews Kimberly Lewis of Feminist Mormon Housewives. Lewis also mentions that people outside of Utah (in New England) are more open to discussing things that are "not in the manual" in a classroom setting. She teaches a teenage sunday school class and mentions that she introduces them to some of these less talked about topics.

- Barlow mentions that the church is responding by putting out a new four volume church history, etc. The interviewer asks but what about the rank and file members (i.e. the church manuals). Barlow says that the church is working on a new set of lesson manuals but didn't mention the details.

[Harry Tic]

You know, I had this same thought as I mulled over this thread while running home from work tonight. I was kind of wondering why certain facts make people lose/question their testimony/belief/faith. If facts made you crumble, what made you believe in the first place? There is no factual reason to believe in the church -- most of its seems preposterous if that's the only way you're going to look at it. And I basically had the exact some thought you just outlined here -- people would have believed a guy who said he translated scriptures from golden plates that he couldn't produce and claimed visitations from God and angels, but now because of marriage to teenagers he's no longer what he claimed? I'm interested in this.

MG asks a very interesting question. Why should some uncomfortable historical detail about JS trump one's testimony of the BoM? If the BoM is what it claims to be, any biographical details about JS would appear to be irrelevant. While I think the reasoning is sound, I don't think it captures how testimonies actually work as an empirical matter. Testimonies generally involve buying into a narrative of some sort, a cluster of claims about JS, the First Vision, the BoM, and so on, that coalesce into a story which we tell ourselves and tell others. The story as a whole is edifying and faith-promoting. A robust faith narrative can accommodate a few anomalies here and there--they can be explained away as long as the big picture is left intact. To borrow an analogy popular in sports, we tend to evaluate JS's "body of work" and either find it inspired or not. A strong body of work does not imply perfection.

But when the number of anomalies grows and reaches critical mass (this is apparently what precipitated the crisis among Swedish members), we come to realize that there are other possible narratives in which the uncomfortable historical details are not a bug, but a feature. In these narratives, JS becomes a charlatan, or a dirty old man (well, young), or a delusional type, or whatever. Once the narrative is flipped, even details that once appeared innocuous or immaterial (JS's money-digging past) come to appear sinister and foreboding.

I tend to think that it's possible to reclaim a more robust and inspiring version of Joseph Smith and, oddly enough, I have tended to find non-Mormon authors writing about JS more interesting than Mormon ones (Harold Bloom, Simon Critchley).

[jay santos]

re: why JS polygamy sketchiness could cause loss of testimony

I agree with MG's point here with a caveat. I think if the only difficult historical issue for Mormonism was polygamy, it would be a lot lot easier. It's really messed up. But if everything else was rock solid, I don't think it would cause too much of a problem. But when Elders Jensen and Turley show up in Sweden they're facing a lot of questions not just polygamy.

The toughest issues for Mormonism are: Book of Abraham, BOM translations/peepstone/treasure seeking, lack of BOM historical evidence, and the changing nature and conflicting accounts of the First Vision and other angelic visitations. Polygamy's the most well known of any of these issues, and if someone gets tripped up on polygamy, it might open the door to look at non-approved sources to evaluate these other issues.

[DrumNFeather]

What's shocking is how yall're are shocked by why people leave the Church. Come off it already about judging their reasons. Each convert comes to the Church with their own reasons for believing; some part of the narrative attracts them to the ideas and they register with them. When they encounter something that subverts the wholesomeness or the logic of the history or some unknown aspect of a person's behavior that they would find deplorable in anyone else, it can cause a rift.

All this self-righteous bullshit I'm reading in this thread is a bunch of fucking poppycock. You find out shit that you thought wasn't so about something and it makes you lose faith in it. My wife walks on water, but if I find out she's going down on the neighbor kid, I'm not going to just say, "well, I made a commitment to her years ago, might as well keep giving her my best years."

Is this not a gate that swings both ways? People leave the church for a variety of reasons...I totally buy that. I've seen family members and close friends struggle and leave, so I'm completely on board with the idea that people leave for a number of legitimate reasons. On the other hand, people stay in the church for a variety of legitimate reasons and as such, should not have their motives or choices judged any more or less harshly than those that leave. To suggest (as has been done in this thread via broadly ascribed labels) that someone is staying in because they are a "TBM" (negative connotation), believe apologetics (negative connotation) or that they just haven't been exposed to all the facts, or that they are in denial, or that they are delusional etc...etc...is just as dismissive and judgmental as someone outright dismissing another's disaffection.

I tend to agree with Surfah, I think the article could've done a lot more to explain where Mattsson is now and how he is approaching his faith, whether that is in or out of the church. If, as some have suggested, this turned into a positive for the saints in that area, I'd like to know more about it.

[SeattleUte]

MG asks a very interesting question. Why should some uncomfortable historical detail about JS trump one's testimony of the BoM? If the BoM is what it claims to be, any biographical details about JS would appear to be irrelevant. While I think the reasoning is sound, I don't think it captures how testimonies actually work as an empirical matter. Testimonies generally involve buying into a narrative of some sort, a cluster of claims about JS, the First Vision, the BoM, and so on, that coalesce into a story which we tell ourselves and tell others. The story as a whole is edifying and faith-promoting. A robust faith narrative can accommodate a few anomalies here and there--they can be explained away as long as the big picture is left intact. To borrow an analogy popular in sports, we tend to evaluate JS's "body of work" and either find it inspired or not. A strong body of work does not imply perfection.

I think you are misreading MG (to borrow one of my favorite Bloom phrases).

[SeattleUte]

re: why JS polygamy sketchiness could cause loss of testimony

I agree with MG's point here with a caveat. I think if the only difficult historical issue for Mormonism was polygamy, it would be a lot lot easier. It's really messed up. But if everything else was rock solid, I don't think it would cause too much of a problem. But when Elders Jensen and Turley show up in Sweden they're facing a lot of questions not just polygamy.

The toughest issues for Mormonism are: Book of Abraham, BOM translations/peepstone/treasure seeking, lack of BOM historical evidence, and the changing nature and conflicting accounts of the First Vision and other angelic visitations. Polygamy's the most well known of any of these issues, and if someone gets tripped up on polygamy, it might open the door to look at non-approved sources to evaluate these other issues.

What about racist teachings including in the Book of Mormon and cluelessness re our country's unique and special role re social progress and the immorality of opposing and having opposed such social progress? To me those are the issues that ought to matter most, particularly to those progmos who are comfortable being part of the LDS Church in their unbelieving skin.

[Harry Tic]

What about racist teachings including in the Book of Mormon and cluelessness re our country's unique and special role re social progress and the immorality of opposing and having opposed such social progress? To me those are the issues that ought to matter most, particularly to those progmos who are comfortable being part of the LDS Church in their unbelieving skin.

Interesting that you think those are, or should be our national priorities, SU: it's a fairly comfortable bourgeois position to take that is unlikely to ruffle many feathers among the educated class. While I think that racism and issues of "social progress" (under some definition) are indeed issues that merit our attention, I'm much more interested in economic stratification, which, perhaps not coincidentally, is one of the primary concerns of the BoM and certainly more important a theme in the text than race.

[SoCalCoug]

re: why JS polygamy sketchiness could cause loss of testimony

I agree with MG's point here with a caveat. I think if the only difficult historical issue for Mormonism was polygamy, it would be a lot lot easier. It's really messed up. But if everything else was rock solid, I don't think it would cause too much of a problem. But when Elders Jensen and Turley show up in Sweden they're facing a lot of questions not just polygamy.

The toughest issues for Mormonism are: Book of Abraham, BOM translations/peepstone/treasure seeking, lack of BOM historical evidence, and the changing nature and conflicting accounts of the First Vision and other angelic visitations. Polygamy's the most well known of any of these issues, and if someone gets tripped up on polygamy, it might open the door to look at non-approved sources to evaluate these other issues.

With regard to the First Vision, it's not the simple fact that there are inconsistencies - it's the fact that when you look at the various accounts, particularly chronologically, the development of the narrative is far more consistent with a story that grew and evolved over time out of Joseph Smith's imagination than it is with a single, discrete, spiritual vision that occurred when he was 14.

[Sullyute]

A Radio West podcast with the author of the article that is somewhat interesting...

http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/mormo...ef-digital-age

One of the interesting things I learned is the Why Mormons Leave Survey was done at the request of Hans Mattsson, the swedish area authority, so that he could show it to higher ups in the church.