Recently I’ve done a series of posts explicitly identifying different rhetorical strategies used in social media spaces around Church topics (One on apologizing for others, and one on disingenuously citing prophets and invoking one’s church heritage).
I didn’t mean for it to be an ongoing series, but I’ve just been noticing these more and more, so if you’ll indulge me for two more (for now)…
First,
On social media spaces it has been common for people (often outwardly very Mormon-y) to communicate commonsensical truisms as if they are somehow deep or controversial as opposed to just reminding us of the basics. While the message themselves are indeed important, implying that the message is somehow edgy is kind of passive aggressively jerk-ish towards the community towards which it is directed.
“Jesus would have loved LGBTQ members, and our wards should too” then to top it off they sometimes do that super annoying little hands prayer emoji.
Midjourney’s depiction of “an insincere looking Mormon who smiles too much”
Of course this statement is true, but that’s exactly the point. Even the most obnoxiously conservative high priest agrees with it, so implying that it’s going to rock our world is actually rather insulting in a mean-spirited way, and just raises the question of what they are actually trying to say (Again, this isn’t directed towards people emphasizing the basics for their own sake.)
Sometimes one senses that they are trying to do a “they who have ears to hear,” thing as if repeating New Testament mantras logically leads people to adopt the person’s particular 21st century interpretation of liberal Christianity, and the promulgators are being magnanimous by not clearly addressing the issue they’re being circumloquacious about because their audience is not ready yet. But in fact that’s insulting in its own way, as if people are too immature to be spoken to plainly and directly (and yes, I realize that by not calling people out by name I’m kind of guilty of the same).
Second,
Some in the Church-related discussion space take the fact that they were a bishop quite seriously and like to put it in their bylines and bios. Some, but not all, are antagonistic towards the Church, making this a case of weaponizing Church titles against the Church. (Ironically, Church titles do apparently grant a lot of cachet in disaffected circles).
First, people can tell when you’re looking for an excuse to mention that you were a bishop, and it just makes you look silly; you’ve essentially become the obnoxious RM who finds a way to mention that he was AP. (And, btw, putting your former or current bishop status in your Facebook profile is just weird in every and all cases).
Second, for those who are openly antagonistic towards the Church, we know what you’re doing. Being a bishop isn’t that special numerically speaking. There are thousands upon thousands of current and former bishops. Probabilistically I’m sure there are bishops who are guilty of all sorts of serious things, including weaponizing their position against the Church. We have a long history of this happening, and while top Church leaders leaving and becoming antagonistic is in the fuzzy past, in principle there’s no reason why it can’t happen again. However, there are some silver lining benefits when a former or current bishop becomes a Sith Lord.
- It helps leaders not take themselves too seriously.
2. It reminds members that it isn’t not over until it’s over.
In principle members would agree that everybody is at risk of falling, but in practice this is one of those things that still surprises people. D&C 3 is profoundly clear on this point. Even Joseph Smith could have fallen. We’re not Calvinists who believe in an inability to fall due to predestination. Having leaders who have messed up helps mitigate against title worship or the sense that leadership experience acts as some sort of extra special shield against tripping later on in life.
“and yes, I realize that by not calling people out by name I’m kind of guilty of the same”
No idea who you have in mind, but sometime it might be worth doing. I suppose it depends on if it’s a random six-follower twitter account, or a recognizable name. There’s a post of my own I keep drafting in my head, but I don’t know if it’s worth the trouble.
I can think of half a dozen people this applies to, many with large followings and some of whom even have books for sale at LDS bookstores. But naming names invites the wrath of their devotees, so sometimes it is best to avoid names, lest a horde of commentators decide to attack and/or cancel you
If it’s the church position that once a Bishop, always a Bishop, and we continue to call individuals by the title Bishop long after they ceased actively serving in that role, then I find it difficult to agree that former bishops cannot reference this title at will, regardless of their current church affiliation.
Interesting that you think even the most obnoxiously conservative high priest agrees that we should love the marginalized, such as our LGBTQ neighbors and family members, among others. High priests in Jesus’ day didn’t agree with this; some Mormon high priests today don’t agree with this. It’s unfortunate you aren’t aware that the marginalized continue to suffer at this very moment from a lack of love.
Ivan’s right. Naming names makes things more personal and nasty so I try to avoid doing that, but yes, there are a few people that this applies to.
@Chadwick: If you asked a hundred obnoxiously conservative high priests whether we should love or hate gay people, I think I’m on pretty solid ground that, while they might disagree on where the BoM took place, 100/100 would say yes. Of course what that means is the crux of the issue.
We do reference people by the bishop title in certain ecclesiastical contexts (if a bishop of mine left activity but came back to Church for a farewell or something I wouldn’t have a problem referring to him as “bishop”), but any attempt to leverage that outside of that domain seems a bit off whether they’re antagonistic to the Church or not.
Sorry, “100 out of 100” *would say that we should love them.* Attempting to write on a cross country road trip.
I have looked high and low for anything official on whether we should call a former Bishop “bishop” and have found there is no official policy, just a folk tradition. The one article on it in the Ensign I found basically said “Meh. Whatever. It’s not required. Just make sure investigators and visitors don’t get confused over who the actual bishop is.”
It seems the Salt Lake City police department would disagree. It would be a stretch to lay this squarely at the feet of those not of our faith tradition.
https://twitter.com/_Cultch/status/1676364861180092417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1676364861180092417%7Ctwgr%5Ef9853f4d35a1829da78eba1bcaa8e6d0853c1aab%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwheatandtares.org%2F2023%2F07%2F19%2Fthe-conservative-culture-war-playbook%2F
It happened on Twitter/It happened in SLC therefore it was the high priests? That’s a dumb argument. You haven’t seen people leave because the Church is too accepting? Look around. It’s happening.
@This again
“It happened on Twitter.” No it did not. It happened in SLC. Twitter is a communication tool where it was discussed.
“therefore it was the high priests? That’s a dumb argument.” Who made that argument? I simply pointed out that the vandalism in the community was on a large enough scale that it probably involved all sorts of people, and that members of our faith community were not immune. You are welcome to prove me wrong.
“You haven’t seen people leave because the Church is too accepting?” No I have not, but I don’t generally run in the social circles of people that take issue with things like this. This statement proves my initial point that there certainly would be members of the church that would take issue with loving the marginalized. So thank you for proving my point by noting that there are members leaving the organization due to loving the marginalized.
“If you asked a hundred obnoxiously conservative high priests whether we should love or hate gay people, I think I’m on pretty solid ground that, while they might disagree on where the BoM took place, 100/100 would say that we should love them. Of course what that means is the crux of the issue.”
This is a strange claim. Whatever you have accomplished with the first sentence you give away with the second. If high priests who say they love gay people are hypocrites about it, then why bother to make your claim at all?
During the past seven years, I have lived in three wards in different parts of Utah County. In each of those wards, I have heard a talk over the pulpit, comments in priesthood meetings, or open conversations at church where high priests spoke with contempt and disgust about people who identify as LGBTQ. I believe that these men would say we should love gay people. They might even claim that they do, in fact, love gay people. However, their actions show that they do not love gay people, so I give no weight to what they claim.
This does not mean that I have given up hope for people like these men, nor have I stopped associating with them. I see good in them as well as evil. But I think it’s really important to see them for who they are and not to indulge in illogical fantasies about them.
I think it’s also important to note that the people who express these bigoted ideas are not the majority of ward members I have known. Although it’s nearly certain that there are many who silently agree with the outspoken bigots, I know that there are many who disagree with them. There just aren’t enough who disagree openly. At times I have spoken up in response to hateful comments, but I feel the shame of not doing so every time. I’m trying to do better.
Turning more directly to the original post, I think it’s fine to be annoyed by the tone of criticism you don’t like. What seems unserious to me is to complain about the tone of the criticism while ignoring its substance.
Loursat: “If high priests who say they love gay people are hypocrites about it, then why bother to make your claim at all?”
We might believe that they’re hypocrites because their expression of love doesn’t look right to us. For some folks a failure to advocate is a failure to love. But even so, there might be lot more going on beneath the surface than meets the eye. My sense is that a lot of latter-day saints sorrowfully carry the label “bigot” as a cross as they try to live by the church’s teachings on marriage & family and chastity & sexuality while, at the same time, trying to be loving towards the LGBTQ community.
@Loursat: Even if we were disagree with how they actual use their claim to love for sexual minorities, I think those 100 high priests would genuinely be sincere about needing to love them. Now, if a group of High Priests were, say, caught TPing a pride center we can talk about what that loving them should look like and how that’s not it, but the particulars are a much bigger issue than I was attempting to tackle here, instead I’m focusing on using simple soundbites as if the soundbites themselves are controversial when they’re not.
@ Stephen C
https://wheatandtares.org/2023/07/19/the-conservative-culture-war-playbook/
Yet another data point in the comments that not everyone’s ward is as accepting as you might think. These are their real lived experiences in their faith communities. Either you believe them or you don’t. Up to you.
If my love language is verbal and my wife’s is action-based, we can claim we are showing them love by doing it our way. But the other person won’t feel it. I suggest we try to love people the way they need love, not the way we think we are supposed to love them cuz faith tradition. Something we can probably all work on.
*about how they actualize their claim to love sexual minorities.*
1. Stephen C., in what world is speaking with contempt and disgust about gay people not a clear indication of the failure to love? People also have to be “caught TPing a pride center” before you start to question whether they’re coming up short? I find that bizarre.
2. You write, “I’m focusing on using simple soundbites as if the soundbites themselves are controversial when they’re not.” This is what I was referring to when I said that you complain about the tone of the criticism while ignoring the substance.
If someone writes, “Jesus would have loved LGBTQ members, and our wards should too,” the criticism is implied, but its meaning is clear. The point is that the soundbite becomes controversial when we don’t live up to it; it’s necessary to repeat how important it is to love LBGTQ people because we fail to love LGBTQ people.
I don’t believe that this message is too subtle to grasp. I think you get it. But instead of responding to its substance, you wave it away by complaining about how it’s delivered. In doing that, you are not being serious.
“Stephen C., in what world is speaking with contempt and disgust about gay people not a clear indication of the failure to love?” I didn’t ever imply otherwise. But again, what is contempt and disgust? Some would argue that anything to the slight right of the Democratic Party platform, or to the Episcopalian Church’s official positioning on human sexuality, counts as hate. Presumably the obnoxiously conservative High Priests would not agree. So the substance is itself arguable. And fine, let’s have that deeper discussion, but it should be about the details, not the soundbite, which again is not controversial in any conservative subculture I’m privy too, and is therefore insulting to said culture when it’s implied otherwise.
While I try to avoid naming names, as an anonymous example of what I’m talking about, there was a meme circulating in LDS circles for a while where Jesus at the sermon on the mount says to love everybody, in response the people in the crowd say “but what about immigrants, gays, and poor people?” and Jesus replies “did I stutter?” Of course it’s just a meme and shouldn’t be taken too seriously as a commentary on a culture, but it made me roll my eyes, as the idea that literally anybody in the 21st century Church would say or believe that is overly simplistic and insulting towards their worldview.
The expressions of contempt and disgust I’m talking about are not political arguments. They are expressions of visceral feeling. Not a thing you have to contemplate in order to recognize. Not a thing that has any reference to a political party’s platform or Episcopal Church teaching. When you hear the disgust, you feel it in your gut. It’s not love.
I don’t fully understand what you find insulting about the memes or messages you’re criticizing. Is it that someone says by implication, in a way you find snarky, that we don’t love LGBTQ people? Or is it equally insulting when someone says it directly? I have said it directly in what I have written here. I have explained how my experiences demonstrate that we do not love LGBTQ people. We treat it as acceptable when people express contempt and disgust toward LGBTQ people. We do this even though it is contrary to God’s injunction to love. Do you find my comments insulting?
So progressive Mormons and exmormons are passive aggressive and judge and use their former callings to give the air of authority when you think they shouldn’t? Is that the argument?
I feel like this series is subtweeting about something and someone but doesn’t make a clear point.
@Loursat: “Is it that someone says by implication, in a way you find snarky, that we don’t love LGBTQ people? Or is it equally insulting when someone says it directly?”
For the umpteenth time, it’s when say the simple line as if it is novel or controversial when it’s not. If you provide more context, as you have, and draw out particulars that’s a bigger issue and not what I’m talking about here.
@Brin G: There are two distinct arguments; the latter has more to do with openly antagonistic ex-believers than progressive Mos (I’m thinking of about four examples in particular). Sure, there’s that British bishop who’s on Twitter, and I think it’s a little weird he’s clearly leveraging his title for social media cachet, but he’s actually funny and that covers a multitude of sins.
Stephen C., I appreciate your responses. Thank you.
The “simple line” is not uncontroversial. Since you have overlooked what I wrote on this point, I will repeat it.
If someone writes, “Jesus would have loved LGBTQ members, and our wards should too,” the criticism is implied, but its meaning is clear. The point of this criticism is that the soundbite becomes controversial when we don’t live up to it; it’s necessary to repeat how important it is to love LBGTQ people because we fail to love LGBTQ people.
To know whether the simple line is controversial, we must draw out the particulars of how we actually behave, not just what we say we believe. The controversy does not necessarily turn on the sincerity of belief. Even if we grant that a belief is sincerely held, acting in ways that are contrary to that belief raises the problem that these memes and messages point to.
Loursat,
Even though what you’re saying about the soundbites might have real application — which is a good reminder for all of us — my sense is that, more often than not, those sorts of memes have to do with a perception that the church’s teachings on marriage and family discriminate against LGBTQ people–and are, therefore, unloving. And so, while those who create such memes are certainly free to have that opinion, they’re actually being rather dismissive of the true feelings of many individual members of the church in the way they share that opinion.
I’m reading a book right now on Roger Williams and it starts with the Puritan expulsion from England leading to settlements in Massachusetts. While not a new thought to me, what struck me while reading is that both the Anglicans doing the expelling and the Puritans being expelled were pretty sure they we right about what God wanted in terms of the balance of the first and second commandments. Both were absolutely convinced of their righteousness and interpretation of the Bible, and that the other was wrong. And then the Puritans got to Massachusetts and expelled Roger Williams for, among other things, misinterpreting what the Bible required of a society built on the first and second commandments. And again, both they and Roger Williams were absolutely convinced that their interpretations of the Bible were correct.
So to echo Steven’s comments, any quoting of the first and second commandments to support whatever cause de jour someone might be in favor of, as if to say that if you just read the Bible you’ll come to the same political position as the speaker, is a non-starter for me–conservative, liberal, or otherwise.
I agree with the suggestion that “Jesus would have loved LGBTQ members, and our wards should too” is probably leading to “You can’t claim to love them if you do X” and I agree with jimbob that that’s a pretty useless argument. Love is a state of mind, and cannot be judged by an outside observer. But love also cannot justify bad behavior–even the Inquisition claimed to love its victims. So better to get straight to arguing about whatever behavior the author has in mind.
On the other hand, “Jesus would have loved LGBTQ members, and our wards should too” is not so obvious and uncontroversial that Church leaders don’t feel the need to tell us similar things on a fairly regular basis. President Oaks in his May YSA fireside, for example: “Anyone who does not treat individuals who face gender identity challenges with love and dignity is not aligned with the teachings of the first and second great commandments.” (I strongly encourage everyone to read that entire section of his talk and put that quote in context.) President Nelson’s “Peacemakers Needed” talk in the April conference is another example, and he used the biggest platform he has to send that message.
Of course, in that talk President Oaks leaves it to us to determine what it means to treat transgender people with “love and dignity.” He got a little more specific in his speech at the University of Virginia on balancing religious freedom and enforcing non-discrimination:
“As a practical basis for co-existence, we should accept the reality that we are fellow citizens who need each other. This requires us to accept some laws we dislike, and to live peacefully with some persons whose values differ from our own….
Another basic imperative is that we should not seek total dominance for our own position; we should seek fairness for all….
The goals of both sides are best served by resolving differences through mutual respect, shared understanding, and good faith negotiations. And both must accept and respect the rule of law….
Extreme voices influence popular opinion, but they polarize and sow resentment as they seek to dominate their opponents and achieve absolute victory. Such outcomes are rarely sustainable or even attainable, and they are never preferable to living together in mutual understanding and peace.”
Okay, not all that specific either. But the approach is clearly different from the dominant mindset on both sides of our political divide. (If you’re still wondering why the Church endorsed the Respect for Marriage act, read President Oaks’ full speech on the Church web site.) And that’s why I think we’re going to keep hearing these messages: as our political environment becomes more and more contentious and hateful, Church members are going to have to deliberately choose not to be influenced by the attitudes and behavior of their political allies in ways that contradict the basic teaching of Jesus to love our neighbors, including our enemies.
RLD: “And that’s why I think we’re going to keep hearing these messages: as our political environment becomes more and more contentious and hateful, Church members are going to have to deliberately choose not to be influenced by the attitudes and behavior of their political allies in ways that contradict the basic teaching of Jesus to love our neighbors, including our enemies.”
I agree. I think we’ll also be challenged by the hate that some folks will feel toward us because of our beliefs on marriage and family–even though we harbor no ill feelings towards those who believe differently. Our duty as Christians must be to *not* reciprocate such feelings but to strive to be peacemakers–albeit, without compromising the gospel covenant.
@ Jack: Yes. Meanwhile, we’ll probably also anger some people who agree with us on same-sex marriage because we still treat LGBT people with love and dignity, and support policies that do the same. I suspect we’ll know we’re doing it right when both sides hate us, or at least mistrust us because our first loyalty is not to our political tribe.
On not compromising on doctrine, President Oaks also said this in that fireside: ‘I have previously referred to our “continually trying to balance the dual commandments of love and law,” but I now believe that goal to be better expressed as trying to live both of these commandments in a more complete way.’ I like that framing, and I think it’s quite possible to do both–as long as you don’t care what other people think about your efforts to do so.