Ask Mormon Girl. And, in the answers, we see troubling tendencies and assumptions being made regarding what Brooks terms our (meaning progressive/leftist/radical feminist LDS) church. It isnt clear how this term our is to be understood here, as conferring some sense of ownership, if only ideological ownership (and hence, the right to input into how the Church is organized and structured, its doctrinal content, and the standards it upholds and defends), or simply as indicating in-group identity and a common social milieu. Cultural Mormons are just that, LDS who have abandoned, in part or in whole, the metaphysical/religious core of the Church (which is the restored gospel) but retained affinities for its social and cultural stems and leaves. For Brooks, our church can be changed, doctrinally and culturally, and changed radically, because as our church we have the right to determine its nature and purpose. If, on the other hand, the Church belongs to Jesus Christ, then, although it is our church in the sense that it is the church to which we belong as a body of saints (we are members of it) united in the cause of Zion, it is not our Church in the sense of ownership or controlling interest. We accept the teachings of Christs church as they are given or we do not, but we can, of course, if it becomes our church, have any teachings we so desire (and we can change them every day, in necessary or expedient). There is, indeed, an LDS Left, and, although tiny, comparatively speaking, its ideology, beliefs, values, and view of the world and the human condition mirror, precisely in many cases, those of the cultural and political Left outside the Church. We have in fact been waiting for this moment—waiting to see whether our religion could survive the insularity, militancy, and suspiciousness engendered by its nineteenth-century persecutions, and outgrow as well the highly centralized and controlling corporate-bureaucratic style of the twentieth-century LDS Church, to adapt to the new realities of the internet era, including greater openness among Mormons with doubts or concerns about controversial aspects of our history and doctrine. We hoped this day would not come. Because we know that excommunication courts are a nineteenth-century Mormon solution to twenty-first century Mormon problems. Exiling and shaming a dozen, two dozen, one hundred, one thousand heterdox Mormons won’t close the book on women’s issues, or LGBT issues, or historical controversies in Mormonism. You could rid the church of an entire generation of querulous bloggers and grassroots organizers and another will rise and take its place. Because these controversies are not private and individual. They are not personal problems. They are the product of Mormon history, Mormon doctrine, and Mormon culture. We didn’t invent them. We inherited them, as will the generations to follow, each taking its turn in the search for truth. Because that is what Mormonism means. askmormongirl/ Brooks is probably right that, were all the anti-Mormon Mormons and ex-Mormon anti-Mormons to be excommunicated, more would rise and take there places. But of course, this isnt the issue, and this kind of apostasy from the Church in the last days (and far worse) is well accounted for in the revelations and in the doctrines of the restoration. We already knew all of this. The only real question is not that there are different sides to be on in the latter days, and that sides can be taken, but only which side one finds oneself on at the door of the final wedding feast. Brooks understanding of the meaning of Mormonism is interesting. Because these controversies are not private and individual. They are not personal problems. They are the product of Mormon history, Mormon doctrine, and Mormon culture. We didn’t invent them. We inherited them, as will the generations to follow, each taking its turn in the search for truth. Because that is what Mormonism means. Actually, the gospel is the good news of the messiahship, mission, Atonement, resurrection, and work of Jesus Christ for all the Fathers sons and daughters, the plan of salvation, and the possibility of becoming like our Father in Heaven through obedience to the teachings and ordinances of the gospel. Each new generation may search for truth, but truth itself never changes; it is stable and constant, while the search for it, and what the concept of truth even means, is always in flux. Just where Joanna Brooks would have it.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 17:28:08 +0000
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