By
Ken Clark
I need to admit up right away that I'm a little bitter. I feel lied to and used. The church had every opportunity to be
truthful from the time my wife and I took the discussions to the time we
left.
My wife and I left the
I had been seriously looking for
another job for some time due to harassment from Priesthood (PH) leaders and
CES administrators. I couldn't take it
anymore. They were not crazy about my
teaching style. I was honest in a gentle
way with institute students about the church's history and doctrine. I wasn't impressed with their denial and
dishonesty. CES and PH leaders refused to
acknowledge that superior resources on church history and doctrine are available
from books, journals, and websites labeled by church leaders as "anti." And that most of the independent sources are
not anti at all. They are objective.
I felt compelled to teach the truth
about the church's drastic revision of history and doctrine. It was an ethical bind: by remaining loyal
and teaching the LDS viewpoint about history and doctrine, I was being
dishonest but valuable to the church. However, by being honest with the students I was branded as disloyal and
I could be fired. I found out that it is
impossible to change the system from the inside. The humility that the church encourages
members to adopt--to remain teachable--is not present in church leaders when they
feel it necessary to protect the church's image.
As one general authority told church educators, "Some things
that are true are not very useful" (Boyd K. Packer to a Church Educational
System Symposium at BYU in 1981). It was
a commandment to professionals to hide uncomfortable truths about Mormon
history and doctrine from students instead of teaching it accurately. I gradually learned that loyalty is and
always has been more important to church leaders than honesty. Mormons from the beginning have revised their
history to create a sympathetic image of a people who have been persecuted and
driven by ruthless, godless, hypocritical mobs for no good reason. It isn't true. It's also a myth that Mormon prophets and
apostles have always been godlike, infallible, and exemplary representatives of
God. Much of the time they have, but
many times they have broken the commandments they are supposed to model. Nevertheless I felt tremendous pressure to
teach what CES ordered while trying to find another job. I gradually lost respect for the church
leaders because in annual temple recommend interviews they demanded that I be
honest. Yet in the classroom they
required me to be dishonest. When I
tried to be honest they called it undermining students' testimonies or
undermining the authority of the prophets of God. The vast majority of students found the
honest approach in my classes refreshing. The pressure from leaders resulted in weekly migraine headaches
requiring a prescription to manage and regular prescriptions of acid reflux
medication to prevent ulcers.
The
Second to the Last Straw--Bishop L
On
The bishop announced that he was dissatisfied with our
church attendance because we hadn't been to church enough to suit him. I reminded him that in May I had written him
a letter as a courtesy informing him that we were going to be out of town much
of the summer because of an unusual number of out-of-town and family
commitments. He seemed irritated about
the letter and indicated that the letter appeared to him to be a lack of respect. I told him that on the contrary, my intentions
were to grant him respect. He argued
with me about it and I saw that I could not convince him that my motives were
pure. Because I remained steadfast he
changed tactics. He suddenly demanded
that Teresa enter the conversation. He
literally shushed me and said, "Let's hear what Mom has to say! C'mon Mom, what
do you say?" She agreed with me of
course and tried to restate our intentions. He directed rapid-fire questions at her for some time. It appeared that he was trying to make her
contradict what I had said--drive a wedge between us. His facial expressions and tone of voice were
tinged with anger and desperation. He
wanted to prove a point. It wasn't working so he finally stopped badgering
her. He wasn't finished. He was just getting warmed up and began to
pursue another angle.
He asked me how often we attended
church when out of town. I told him that
it depended on where we were visiting. When conducting CES business in North Central Idaho I always attended
the ward I visited. What about when I
was visiting an out of town relative? I
told him "not very much on those occasions." He demanded that I be specific and tell him how many times I had
attended and how many times I had missed. I told him I couldn't be specific because I couldn't remember. I wasn't in the habit of carrying a calendar
with me to document my meeting attendance. I didn't know I had to. No one else
I had ever known in 33 years of church activity had to. I could never remember another member being
grilled about this issue--ever.
He became more aggressive and his voice became louder and he
demanded to know, "so most of the time or not?" I told him that "some of the time would be accurate I guess." He again demanded that I be more
specific. I told him I couldn't. He said,
"So are you saying not much of the time?" I said, "No probably most of the
time,” trying to remember if most of my visits that summer had been to wards
where I visited for CES business or whether I was out of town visiting parents
or relatives. He continued to bear down
on me. Finally, he concluded this
segment of the grilling with "I cannot renew your temple recommend because
worthiness requires that you attend YOUR OWN HOME WARD." I had just been released as a bishop a year
and a half earlier. I remembered nothing
in the handbook suggesting that that aspect of meeting attendance should be
given the disproportionate emphasis he had just given it. By that standard worthy members who travel a
lot with their jobs or even general authorities would not qualify for a temple
recommend. He seemed bent on convicting
us. I was taken back. It was a little surreal. Before I could reflect he listed another
complaint against us.
"Why haven't you paid any tithing
during the year?" I replied that we were
going to pay our tithing in a lump sum or pay it with some investment stocks
that we would turn over to the church at the end of the year, using the
provision provided by the church in their handbook of instructions. I went on to tell him that my secretary at
the Institute in
He startled us and suddenly moved on
to the next problem, without any closure on the tithing issue. "You read the scriptures too much in
Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School!” he blurted out. He seemed pleased after injecting the
accusation. I looked at Teresa in
amazement and she looked at me questioning if she heard him right. I wasn't sure either so I asked him if he
really said that I read the scriptures too much in church. He told me it was rude of me. I patiently explained that I had begun taking
my scriptures to church years before it became fashionable. For 33 years when talks and lessons were
being given I followed along or looked up related verses. Anyone who knows me can vouch for that. He continued to insist that I was rude. I was growing impatient and protested that he
should talk to the people who sleep during church, play tic-tac-toe, and wander
around the hallways out of boredom. He
insisted that I was rude in an effort to make sure he got the last word in I
guess. I let him. It was obvious by now that the outcome of
this "interview” with my "spiritual shepherd” was decided before we walked in
the door. He announced that we were not
temple recommend worthy.
He complained about some other
things, and I told him that I wanted to appeal his decision not to renew our
temple recommends. "Fine, but the stake
president is going to have to tell me that I am wrong!” He seemed confident that that would never
happen. I was absolutely confident that
it would because his case against us seemed so petty, unchristian, and
bizarre. How could the stake president
support him? He was acting crazy! I had served as a bishop I wouldn't have
dreamed of roughing up members the way he had. I didn't know that he and the stake president were in complete agreement
because of meetings they had held prior to our encounter.
The next day (
He listed the bishop's concerns. I
told the stake president that it sounded as if the bishop thought I was
lying. He admitted that indeed the
bishop didn't trust me.
I discussed reading scriptures
during the meetings too much and the stake president clearly didn't want to
address it. I pointed out how absurd and
bizarre it was that I should be accused of such a silly thing. I thought it demonstrated just how crazy and
out of hand the rest of the bishop's accusations were. He said that he doubted if it was the heart
of the bishop's concerns. I reminded the
president that we spent as much time on that issue as any other subject. He clearly didn't want to talk about it
however. I am guessing that it was so
indefensible, that he couldn't support the bishop's point of view. He wanted to get to the stuff he felt he
could make defend.
He said that he too was worried that
I wanted to pay my tithing at the end of the year as a lump sum. I told him that I didn't see what the problem
was. Did he call everyone in for an interview
that chose to pay tithing in a lump sum at the end of the year? "No,” he admitted. He asked why I hadn't been to tithing
settlement in a while. I told him that
when I was bishop I was too busy. I was
busy conducting tithing settlement too. I think I had missed one tithing settlement after my release. I had written a letter with my last check (to
bring us up to the right amount) declaring that we were full tithe payers. He told me that the bishop was pretty upset
about the letter. (I must be a terrible
letter writer because the bishop didn't like any of them.) The bishop hadn't said a word to me about
it. I learned that because I had failed
to show up in person to the last tithing settlement, Bishop L had listed me as
a part-tithe payer the previous year despite the letter declaring us to be
full-tithe payers. "Why hadn't the
bishop said something to me instead of sneaking around behind my back if he was
so upset?" I asked. It seemed a little
passive-aggressive.
I
asked the stake president, "Does the bishop think I didn't pay a full tithing
because I pay it on my net income?" I've always done it that way,
since being converted in 1970. Apparently it bothered the bishop. I was supposed to pay more to the $6 billion per-year corporation. They held the threat of not receiving a
temple recommend over my head. A condition
of my employment with CES was that I hold a valid temple recommend. Refusing to renew it is a strong arm tactic
to keep me and other church employees in line. I could not remember Jesus threatening disciples because he demanded
more money from them. His emphasis
seemed to be on loving one's neighbor. Jesus wasn't wealthy like the Mormon Church is. Jesus of Nazareth rejected crass materialism
(Matthew
I'm distressed about the guilt
heaped on members to pay tithing, even when they don't make enough money to buy
food and pay their rent. "He that is
tithed shall not be burned at his coming,” so says Doctrine & Covenants
64:23 (scripture and revelations revealed to Joseph Smith by God in addition to
the Book of Mormon). Teresa and I were
not able to provide food in the early 1970's, yet we were continually coerced
with guilt and fear to pay up. In
The stake president addressed the
meeting attendance issue next. I was
tired of lying down and being treated like a doormat. So I argued with him rather than lie down and
take it anymore. He was still trying
hard to be folksy and cordial while we debated. He needed to get back to work and wanted to cut to the chase. He said he
had a simple solution to this problem. I
could do two things to earn the bishop's trust: (1) I should bring in my
paycheck stubs and let him and the bishop calculate my tithing for me; and then
pay that amount by-the-month. I was
supposed to forget about the options of paying in a lump sum or turning over
stock in lieu of tithing. (2) When
visiting relatives out of town, I was to attend church and bring back
information so my bishop could call the out-of-town bishop and verify our
presence there. He smiled proudly and
said, "I think that will solve everything. You'll gain his trust back in a few months or a year." This wily stake president, with his "ah
shucks” way was not only being heavy handed, but he was misleading me. He knew that in a week Bishop L would be
released and a new bishop would replace him. There was no way that I was going to solve any problem with Bishop L "in
a few months or a year." He wouldn't be
around. And I was the one being accused
of dishonesty.
I nearly fell off my chair. He could tell I was stunned, bewildered and
upset. He seemed to enjoy the obvious
advantage because he sat there with a big toothy grin. I asked him why I was being singled out and
persecuted. He told me that it wasn't
that at all. It was a matter of my being
in a very prestigious position in the stake. I was an Institute Director. "Why
you're almost like a stake president. You are an example and should be held to a higher standard." I told him that there were no separate
standards for different members, and asked him to justify his separate
standards in the handbook of instructions. He said he felt sorry that I wasn't being more cooperative and he was
worried about my testimony. He wondered
if I was "tough enough” to stand the chastisement. We talked more, but to be honest it's all a
blur. (The reason I remember the things
I do is because I took notes of the conversations and I keep them in my files.)
He left giving me a good-hearted
handshake. But I was angry and
confused. For 33 years the standard line
from leaders has consistently been, "Your tithing is between you and the Lord." (The Church Handbook of Instructions Book 1
page 134 defines tithing as "one-tenth of all their interest annually." It goes on to say, "No one is justified in
making any other statement than this.")
I had never heard of leaders telling a member to bring their
paycheck stubs to a leader so he could calculate their tithing and demand that
they pay it by the month. I had never
heard of attendance Nazis checking up on a member's out of town meeting
attendance. If they did institute the
practice, the majority of members on vacation would be in for a shock. It was bizarre. According to the Book of Mormon pride is a
terrible sin. What I had just experienced
was over the top smugness and arrogance (See also Ezra Taft Benson, Beware of
Pride, Conference Report, April 1989). I told myself "never again."
I left work immediately after the
interview because I was devastated and depressed. I had already worked the 320 hours that I
committed to CES. In fact, every summer,
I always worked at least 80 to 100 hours more than I contracted to so I would
be prepared for the coming school year. Didn't that kind of effort count for something or indicate something
about my character? I never received a
word of support, gratitude or encouragement for my effort to put in extra hours
during the summer months--time I could have used for vacation (or really
exciting home projects)!
As I climbed into my truck, I called my wife on the cell
phone. She was at work and when she
answered, her first question was, "How did it go?" I answered, "Great!” She was relieved. We had been through quite a few of these
inquisitions before so she was glad to be through another one. I asked her to meet me for dinner after she
got off work and I would tell her all about it.
After our conversation my pain
changed to anger. Sometimes anger speaks
to the mind with greater clarity than anything else. I was determined to figure out a way to
quit. It became clear to me what to do
and for the first time in 33 years I wasn't afraid to quit. Teresa and I could do anything we set our
minds to. I refused to waste another
minute being scared and depressed because I was dependent on the church. I was no longer trapped by their threats of
reaping eternal misery. That had ended
years before.
I was tired of working for a group whose main method of
control is heaping guilt, shame and fear on members and threatening them with
eternal separation from God and family. I wasn't willing to give up my right to question and think for myself
another minute so I could pretend to be loyal. I was sick of being blindly submissive; pretending that leaders of the
church possess some special gift of inspiration or discernment when it is
obvious to that their judgment is mediocre, arbitrary or sometimes
ridiculous. I was tired of being told
that I was unworthy. I was tired of
having them try to convince me that I ought to feel inadequate because I
reserved the right to put their "inspired counsel” to the test. I was tired of being told that I needed to be
more orthodox. Why didn't they value honesty above orthodoxy? History proves that dictators always insist
on orthodoxy and unquestioning obedience. I was weary of being told it was wrong to teach the truth to members
about the church's history and past leaders. I was tired of pretending that simple-minded men (always men) are the
wisest among us. I did not believe that
when the prophet speaks the thinking has been done. In truth, members are supposed to believe
that when their bishop or stake president speaks, the thinking has been done
too. In my mind, it's just silly.
Church leaders often appear incapable of dealing with the
real complexities and subtle nuances in our lives. Almost everything is seen in purely black and
white, absolute terms. They offer cookie
cutter, simpleton advice to all members no matter what the problem--read the
Book of Mormon and pray about it. "The
Holy Ghost will tell you what to do." Trouble is, when you pray and reach a different conclusion than one of
your leaders, you are the one who didn't do it right or you weren't worthy
enough to receive the right answer. They
never entertain the thought that Joseph Smith or one of the living leaders is
just plain wrong. I'm offended that the
Mormon leaders expected me to respond as a dumb child who needed the church to
tell me what to think say and do. An
attitude of arrogant entitlement and control leaves little room for humility in
church governance. And too often the
trivial and peripheral are treated as fundamental. It's the "don't tell the emperor he has no
clothes” syndrome.
I spent the rest of the drive home figuring out ways to quit
and avoid financial ruin. If we needed
to, we would rob our savings and/or retirement and pay off the house, and I
would find another job. After all, I had
a Ph.D. in Education Administration (emphasis in Higher Education), a Masters
in Counseling and a teaching certificate, K-12. Why couldn't I find something else? I began to feel happy and excited by the thought that I would no longer
be subject to mind numbing and tortuous inquisitions, arbitrary rules and
unyielding leaders who insisted that we regard their every decision as inspired
of God. I had pulled back the curtain
and saw that the wizard was only an old white guy trying very hard to prop up
the fairy tale created by past Mormon leaders. Traditions trump honesty in the church.
When my wife and I met for dinner
that evening, she reached across the table, grabbed my hands, smiled, her eyes
gleamed (she has the most beautiful eyes) and she kissed me. I was eager to share the news. I waited for the waitress to finish her
duties and after she left, I blurted it out. "I want to quit CES and the church!” She barely hesitated. She giggled
and immediately cried out, "YES!” She
couldn't believe I was finally ready to do it. She had wanted me to quit CES for years because of the amount of abuse
heaped on me by insecure administrators for awful offenses like, "You say
"stupid” a lot. (I endured a 3-hour
verbal roast because of that one.) She
had been waiting for years for me to believe in myself enough to quit.
I can't describe how happy we were. Making the decision and then saying it out
loud lifted an enormous load. We ate our
meal and planned our escape from Mormon domination. We both had ice tea--a sign of real rebellion!
The next day was Tuesday, August 6th. I called a good friend in
I spent the rest of that same day
trying to determine what options to pursue to keep the financial pain and
strain my quitting would create to a minimum. I made a pretty good income with CES. My base salary had been approximately $62,500, plus an extra $8,000 to
$10,000 in summer income. We had grown
used to living pretty well because in addition to my salary, Teresa worked as
part-time as a Registered Nurse. We were
comfortable financially but it just wasn't worth it anymore. I refused to give up my right to think and
speak honestly for money.
My training and work experience for 27 years was in a narrow
field. Working in CES is all about
teaching religion with a Mormon slant, being clever and delivering the
party-line to kids who come to with questions--follow the prophet. It doesn't hurt if you are really good at
sports and ping-pong either. There are 2
universities and 1 college within 35 miles of
I couldn't even get an interview as night supervisor at the
student recreation center for 1/3 of my present salary. Truth is, they already had people in place or
knew whom they wanted to hire before they advertised the position. They advertised it to make it look like they
were interested in finding the best candidate. I don't blame them. But I got
scared. I liked being scared about this
problem instead of waiting for the phone to ring and having some CES
administrator or PH leader summon me to another inquisition.
I once got calls from two CES Zone Administrators from Salt
Lake grilling me because I had referred a 30-year old married, law student to
an article by Lester Bush out of Dialogue about why the church denied black members the
opportunity to hold the priesthood (PH). (See also Neither White nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race
Issue in a Universal Church, edited by Lester Bush and Armand Mauss, [Salt Lake
City Utah: Signature Books, 1984].) I
was told to be prudent and not undermine the testimonies of students. I informed the administrators that the person
they were referring to wasn't an institute student--he was a member of my ward
who asked me for information as his bishop. Besides, the information I directed the man to was responsible and accurate. I asked what my actions as a bishop had to do
with my CES employment when in this case they were not related? I never received an answer, but I got
warnings to be careful what I discussed with students. It was a veiled threat to avoid anything that
the church doesn't want to have to answer questions about--especially if the
answers reveal flaws in its leaders or the church bureaucracy. Apostle Dallin H. Oaks chiseled it in stone, "It does not matter that the criticism
is true." (Dallin H. Oaks, Reading
Church History, Ninth Annual Church Educational System religious Educators'
Symposium, August 16, 1985, Brigham Young University.) In CES it's your duty to keep the mystique
alive that the leaders are infallible.
On the morning of
I picked up the phone and called my
friend in SLC at CES headquarters and told him that we were submitting our
formal resignation, and asked for directions on how to proceed. He offered some wonderful words of encouragement
and gracious support, and then told me what to do.
I called my Area Director in
I called 3 colleagues who I still love. They worked with me for 12 years while I was
at the
My friends had heard me threaten to quit CES after enduring
some awful roasts in the past. My
colleagues were sad for me but they were torn. They wanted to offer their sympathy, but they would not cross the line--the
one that would make them look disloyal to the PH. Each CES colleague was a counselor to a
different stake president. One of them
is the second counselor to the student stake president--one of the stake
presidents who had made my life a living hell. My other colleague was first counselor to the stake president who I had
met with just two days before--the one who wanted to examine my paycheck stubs
and tell me how much tithing I should pay. They were absolutely loyal to the PH. I hated it. They knew that the
priesthood guys were way out of line, but they couldn't bring themselves to
admit it out loud. They circled the
wagons to protect their own jobs. They
had told me in previous conversations how terrified it made them to think about
leaving CES and find a job. They were
convinced that they couldn't make it outside church employment. I used to believe that too. Because of their fear induced paralysis they
wouldn't give me a lot of support--unless silence and "I'm so sorry” count. Some of that is due to the fact that I not
only opted out of CES but out of the church as well. Contrary to the lip service given to the
principle of obedience, loyalty is the first law of heaven in the church.
It bothered me that PH leaders are
unaccountable for nearly everything they say and do. I told my friends that a system that rewarded
atrocious behavior on the part of its leaders was sick and uninspired. It was a systemic problem and not a problem
with an individual as they tried to persuade me. I explained to my friends that
I didn't plan on ever coming back to church. I had lost so much respect for the system, rules, the hierarchal
organization and the demand that "when the leaders speak the thinking has been
done." I was tired of being ordered not
to think.
I was embarrassed that I hadn't had the courage to leave
earlier and I shared that weakness with my friends. It really hurt their feelings to hear me talk
that way. They love the church. They took it personally. I didn't go out of my way to hurt them. I only wanted to let them know that when I
said I was fed up and wasn't going to take it anymore, I really meant it. I didn't intend to submit to another phony,
pompous PH leader's arbitrary behavior again. There was some weeping on the phone. It wasn't me. I was too happy,
scared, enthusiastic and anxious. I
suspect they believed in their hearts that I had lost my soul. That's effective brainwashing on the church's
part.
It's a common theme that you cannot possibly be happy
without the church. When we would go to
church dutifully on warm summer days and see our neighbors take off for boating
and fishing trips or different church meetings, I think we all tried to
convince ourselves that they were weren't really happy--they couldn't possibly
happy--they weren't members of the true church! After all, we were righteous Mormons, who went to church even when it
hurt. Members frequently stand and
declare that if they weren't members they would probably be very unhappy and
living a life of sin. They honestly
believe that. That cliché breeds
dependence and then smugness.
I love my friends, and used to drop by the institute in
It's my opinion that
the leaders of the church encourage the use of devious tactics. Unwittingly or otherwise they have taught
CES employees and some PH leaders that it's okay to exaggerate or minimize
(lie) to protect the church and its leaders. Joseph Smith made it a time-honored tradition in Mormonism to "beat the
devil at his own game." Many Mormons
believe that it's okay to compromise the truth in order to protect the church,
because you're accomplishing a greater good. God's laws trump the laws of man. Interviews by Church president Gordon B. Hinckley to various media in
the past decade prove my point. He has
denied that the church teaches that God was once a man and that Mormons can
become gods and goddesses. He knows
that's blatantly false. He has declared
that only a small percentage of Mormons ever practiced polygamy (2-3%) when he
knows it was ten times that number or more (he's an amateur church historian
and has authored at least one book on church history). He denied that DNA evidence exists which
contradicts the Book of Mormon teaching that Native Americans are descended
from Israelites. The DNA evidence is
clear and undercuts the Book of Mormon thesis that colonies of Hebrews are the
direct ancestors of American Indians. He denied that Mormons led and carried
out the Mountain Meadows Massacre though he knows differently. Members watch the Mike Wallace and Larry King
interviews and learn that prevarication and deception is alive and well in the
highest echelons of the church--all for a good reason--to create a sanitized
image of the church and its people, and protect the church from embarrassing
criticism. When President Hinckley
acknowledges his deception publicly with a wink and a nod to members gathered
at a church general conference, members laugh approvingly (see Richard and Joan
Ostling, Mormon America, p. 296).
The colleague I worked closest with, the one who served in
the student stake presidency gave a talk about me in ward conference (an annual
meeting where stake leaders attend and focus on goal setting) not many months
after I dropped out. He told the
audience how sad he was that I left the church. Though he never mentioned me by name his hints and clues were clear to
my son and everyone else in the audience that he was talking about me. He said that my problem was pride. He said I stubbornly refused to humble myself
before my PH leaders. When I confronted
him about it in person he frankly admitted his error and apologized. He was pretty scared as I stood over him and
visited with him. I told him if he ever
wanted to give that talk again, he needed to invite me along and give me equal
time so I could give them the real story. I forgave him and told him never to do that to me again. My son reported that he had not told his
audience about the PH harassment I had endured. It was a typical dishonest account designed to defend the outrageous
behavior of flawed leaders who want to appear sinless by distorting the truth
to help them maintain their blameless image. As I keep saying, loyalty is more important than honesty in the
church. Deception is acceptable when
defending the church and its leaders. To
paraphrase, truth is the first casualty when defending the church and its leaders.
The deliberate ignorance and overwhelming indifference to
mistreatment by ecclesiastical leaders is discouraging to me. Members are trained to turn their heads and
treat those who refuse to take it anymore as "lost sheep." It's disgusting that they are willing to give
up their right to think, question and demand answers. But it won't change anytime soon.
Teresa and I joined the church in 1970 approximately 6 weeks
after marrying, during my sophomore year at
I didn't learn that until after I was baptized that my
friend had totally misrepresented most of the things he told me about the
church. He wasn't being malicious or
sneaky. He was simply uniformed about
the church's history and doctrine. That's not uncommon. After all,
19-21 year-old boys ( and some girls) ride their bikes around pedaling
Mormonism all over the world and they are the full-time "pros." I used to prepare those kids in seminary and
institute classes and send them out on missions. I can vouch that they don't know much about
church history and doctrine. Most had
never read the Bible or Book of Mormon from cover to cover. By their own admission, most don't have
"testimonies” when they decide to go--often under tremendous pressure from
parents, seminary and institute teachers, girlfriends, etc. Missions are breeding grounds for all kinds
of misinformation. Missionaries
routinely learn mocking terminology when talking about other churches. They aren't particularly mean or
malicious. They just don't know any
better. They have no life
experience. They are trained by other
20-21 year-olds in the mission field. I
got frustrated and weary listening to them mock "J-dubs” (Jehovah's Witnesses),
"Holy Rollers”, "wicked Catholic priests”, and other religious groups. It was always based on incorrect and
distorted information. I corrected their
misperceptions every chance I got and pointed out to them that virtually of my
extended family belonged to different churches and they did a better job of
practicing Christianity than most Mormons I knew. They used to look at me like I had eaten one
of their parents. How could I be so
disloyal?
My new wife wanted to please me so she agreed to take the
discussions with me and we joined together in April of 1970. Because the missionary discussions are pretty
bland and don't really teach you about the strange beliefs of Mormonism (plural
marriage, barring black Africans from PH privileges, man can become god, God
was once a man, etc.). We weren't aware
that we weren't getting a lot of the "inside” information. We were joining because we were confident
that we were getting the full Monty. That's what we were led to believe.
Conversion is based on emotions stimulated during missionary
discussions and church meetings, and being loved by a whole group of people who
seem extremely happy that you are investigating their church. Pray and "feel” the spirit. Listen to your "heart." Does it "feel” right when you read the Book
of Mormon and pray? Independent sources,
independent evidence or factual information that may contradict what is being
taught, and may be more accurate is absent. An emotionally charged atmosphere is sometimes present during missionary
discussions. Sometimes when it's quiet a
missionary or member may tell you in a hushed voice, "that's the spirit telling
you it's true. Do you feel it?" Virtually any good feeling is the Spirit as long as it confirms
something you're supposed to believe.
Mormons believe that when you feel good about Mormonism, the
Book of Mormon, etc. The Spirit has just given you all the evidence you need to
know that it is true. They believe the
good feeling is superior to any other kind of evidence. You are strongly discouraged as an
investigator to seek out independent sources to investigate the truth of their
claims. I like to compare the validity
of a testimony of the Mormons to the Karo Tribe in
The members of the church were convinced that Elder Paul H.
Dunn was a special vessel of God's Spirit because he told miraculous stories
about war and baseball to Mormon audiences. He also wowed (translate: fooled) fellow general authorities. He was a member of the church's Quorum of
Seventy (they are said in the Doctrine and Covenants to be a quorum "equal in
authority” to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (D&C 107:26). Leaders and members felt the truth of his
message in their bones. He was also the
most entertaining speaker of all the general authorities. After all, who could top those stories? Everyone "knew” God had anointed him with a
special gift and calling and had a special purpose for him. God had given him those experiences so he
could teach the youth to be faithful, unquestioning, and loyal Mormons. Trouble is he turned out to be a liar. None of his stories about baseball or war
were true. (Repeat that sentence again
for effect emphasizing the word "none”.)
It's a dangerous thing to trust feelings completely without
some system of checks and balances. But
that's exactly what Mormons want investigators to do. Returned missionaries used to tell me how
distressing it was when an investigator would actually study independent
sources to check out their stories about the church. From the missionaries' point of view, Satan
invariably led those studious investigators away from the church. If only they wouldn't study!
Using the Bible to prove that Mormonism is the only true
church is one cornerstone of missionary work. The scriptural evidence that's provided to investigators consists almost
entirely of proof texting. A verse here
and a verse there are lifted from the Bible to prove a point, regardless of its
context. For instance, missionaries and
teachers in church classes, and of all places in general conferences held every
April and October, frequently use 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 to prove that the Word
of Wisdom, the church's prohibition against alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea,
is supported by the Bible. This
particular passage at first glance seems to indicate that one's physical body
is sacred and should be kept pure or God will not be pleased. In reality, if one begins reading from the
first verse and continues it becomes obvious that Paul is comparing Christ's
community of believers to a building--a temple. He's admonishing the church collectively to exhibit humility and
spiritual maturity and rid themselves of problems that plagued the church. It is not remotely related to the Mormon
health code or any other health code.
It disturbed a fair number of people when I pointed out this
common error. At first I was told that
scriptures can have many different meanings. I countered with, "Not when the meaning is spelled out clearly by its
author on a subject as clear as the one in 1 Corinthians 3." I need to point out that because Mormons
insist on using the King James Version most of the everyday members do not
understand much of what they read (based on their own admission). So they think that you can interpret passages
of scripture almost any way you want as long as it inspires you and motivates
you to become Christ like. I know
charismatic seminary teachers who testify to it. They assume it's all confusing and scriptural
authors don't really say what they mean and mean what they say. In classes I encouraged students to read the
New International Version or others that put scriptural language in an
understandable format. Some thought it
was heresy.
I was also accused of mocking the leaders of the church by
pointing out verses they had taken out of context. It's wrong to point out a mistake. The general authorities are nearly all former
businessmen, lawyers, and CES employees. They aren't theologians by any stretch--even the studious ones. I was supposed to pretend that they were
right when they were wrong to preserve their image. (The emperor has no clothes syndrome.)
I was too inexperienced and vulnerable at age 20 during the
missionary discussions to stop and say, "Emotions are not evidence that
something is true." They are just
feelings. Sometimes they are indications
of what kind of mood you're in (I treated members with bipolar disorder and
during depressed periods they were full of self loathing and feelings of unworthiness. When they were "up” they felt spiritually in
the groove); sometimes feelings are the result of getting carried away in the
moment; sometimes they are wishful thinking; sometimes they are the result of
hearing only one side of a story. In any
case feelings are not dependable measures of truth, facts or knowledge. I wasn't mature enough at that time to fully
understand that. I was carried away with
the feelings attending the missionary discussions and church meetings where we
were treated like royalty. It was very
flattering and I loved to be flattered. At that age I desperately wanted the approval of the missionaries and
the members. I was thrilled by the considerable attention the members gave
us. Though the Book of Mormon preaches
against it, flattery is an important missionary tool for the church.
I did not know that our progress was being carefully
monitored and "helped along the way” by the ward leaders attending weekly
Sunday leadership meetings. I did not
know that tactical plans and coordinated assignments were made to insure that
we felt loved and welcomed. I didn't
know that ward members were assigned to invite us over to dinner, offer us
rides, with the responsibility to report back. I just loved all the attention and though these were the best people in
the whole world. My wife wasn't moved
nearly as I was by the slavish attention. She carries a wonderful sense of healthy skepticism with her. Had I listened to her we would have never
joined the church.
If I had
been more mature then I would have questioned why the Mormons demanded such an
unquestioned devotion and obedience to elderly white men. It was hero worship when I later stepped back
and thought about it. It was sort of
like the reverential awe paid to the pope, except he is much more limited
within the confines of papal infallibility than Mormon leaders are. They were treated like old rock stars. Joseph Smith and the living prophets were
elevated to exalted status. According to
Mormons Joseph Smith was the greatest mortal who has ever lived because he did
more for mankind than anyone else except Jesus Christ. (Doctrine and Covenants Section 135, verse
3) Why didn't I question that cult-like
demand for obedience? Why didn't I
question that Jesus and the atonement were pushed to the background and
obedience to Mormon prophets was thrust into the foreground? Why didn't I
question, the Mormon mantra, "Obedience is the first law of heaven,” or "The
prophets will never lead the church astray,” or "Obey the prophets and even if
it's wrong you'll be blessed?" That's crazy! If there is a first law of heaven, it‘s free
will, the right to think and choose for one's self. Only later when I was
teaching for the church did it occur to me that a lot of time and talk is invested
in reminding members that we fought a war in heaven to preserve the principle
of agency--the right to make choices. Yet
you were supposed to surrender your agency to God. That translates into giving it to the Mormon
leaders because they speak for God. What
they say is exactly the same thing God would say if He were present (D&C
Mormons
contradict themselves and each other when teaching or defending the faith. I used to do it too. It's not the members' fault. Their leaders have said some really silly
things but you're not supposed to point them out or notice them. You're also not supposed to notice that
leaders routinely contradict each other, while claiming to receive clear and
direct messages from the same God. Imagine for a moment what kind of mixed up and confused being God must
be to say one thing through Apostle Dallin Oaks (homosexuals may have something
in their genetic make up that makes them that way) and the opposite thing
through Apostle Boyd K. Packer (homosexuals are the way they are because of
mischief and sinful behavior--there is no such thing as a genetic
tendency). There are hundreds of
striking contradictions that you are supposed to turn a blind eye to or
preferably never discover by reading studying.
It began
with Joseph Smith who translated the Book of Mormon (BM) as God wrote the
correct English sentences on a peep stone in a hat Joseph thrust his face
into. At least that was the first
claim. It had to be changed when Joseph
promptly began changing the awful grammar and some doctrines of the BM in 1837
when the second edition was published. Smith had written in 1 Nephi 11:18 that Mary "was the mother of God." When he changed his theology about
God, he changed that passage in the 1837 version to read that Mary was "the
mother of the Son of God." In
D&C
Joseph also
made drastic changes to the Doctrine and Covenants (revelations to Joseph
Smith) between 1833 and 1835 without the consent of other leaders. It caused David Whitmer, one of the most
prominent leaders next to Joseph Smith, to lose faith in him. He accused Joseph of receiving revelations
for the purpose of reserving power for himself and contradicting his own claim
that God was speaking to Him (David Whitmer, "An Address to All Believers in
Christ”).
The new and
changing views of the most basic doctrines provide cover for those trying to
explain the faith and find something in common with traditional
Christians. If Mormons are accused of
being brainwashed sheep who are supposed to obey leaders without question, the
Mormon can simply quote another leader who contradicted that idea and said the
opposite--that Mormons are supposed to think for themselves. Mormons can rarely be pinned down in a debate
about religion due to the many contradictory positions they may hold. Their
explanation is that God is merely giving new knowledge "line upon line, precept
upon precept” as mankind becomes ready for it. In addition, having no concrete definition of doctrine allows them to
neatly sidestep any question they personally don't agree with by saying, "that's
not official doctrine." They
don't seem to notice the absurdity of that position. For many years I didn't.
The missionaries were eager for us to "feel” the
truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Because I admired Elders B and A, we wanted to please them and to feel
something during the missionary discussions. They are trained to try and baptize as many converts as they can. They were only doing their jobs. I "felt” something because the pressure was on
to feel it. I was 20 and Teresa was
18. Basing your entire life on some sort
of unidentifiable feeling instead of rational evidence places the vulnerable
and insecure investigator in the uncomfortable position of wanting to please
the missionaries and members who have lavished kindness on them. If they are weak like I was, they will try
hard to do that. Being such young
newlyweds, we were also susceptible to a new religious group after a dramatic
life-changing event. I wanted their
approval and everyone else's too come to think of it. I grew up wanting approval. I can also look back and remember guilt and
the superstitious feelings I carried inside about God, human nature, religion
and spirituality. I was ripe for the
picking. Mormons bring concrete answers
to all of life's most profound questions and it appealed to me. I was too young to see that it was all too
pat. But I wanted to learn all those
simplistic explanations to all of life's hard questions. I wanted easy answers for virtually every
question. They had them.
Ideally, an investigator is supposed to learn a little about
the church, hopefully not be introduced to the serious historical and doctrinal
problems the church desperately wants to keep hidden, and then join the church
in about 2 weeks. It's a little like a
used car salesman who doesn't want a prospective buyer to check out their
"deal” with other dealers, Consumer Reports, or other good, independent
information. The quicker you buy and the
less you check out their claims the better. The big tool the used car salesman doesn't have is one that the Mormons
use routinely. "If you are given the
opportunity of joining the true church then turn away from it, you face an
uncertain eternity. You will have
rejected an opportunity from God's servants to join God's true church." That's what the missionaries told us or words
to that effect. We were young and
impressionable and I believed them (Teresa didn't).
Another point that deserves attention when referring to the
missionary discussions is the principle of informed consent. Ethics related to the practice of medicine
require that a patient be given all pertinent information about the risks and
benefits of a procedure before consenting to it. It's understood that the choices (autonomy)
of a patient cannot be honored unless they have good information on which to
base an informed decision about their health (See Beauchamp and Childress,
"Principles of Biomedical Ethics,” (New York: Oxford University Press 1994)
Fourth Edition). Similar ethical
standards exist in other helping professions. Mormon leaders feel comfortable ignoring this fundamental ethical
standard. When we were being taught by
the missionaries we were not given a full disclosure of what Mormonism is all
about--no one is, by design. The
discussions, whether missionaries used a flannel board, 3-ring binders, or the
little tiny spiral bound picture sets, are non-offensive and homogenized for a
reason. They carefully avoid what is/was
central to Mormonism:
(1)
God
was once a man who lived on an earth, was married and a polygamist,
(2)
He
lived such a good life he earned his exaltation through good works,
(3)
After
he died He was resurrected with a perfect body of flesh and bone,
(4)
Ditto
for his plural wives,
(5)
He
received power to create worlds including this earth, from His Father
(Grandfather God) in Heaven (who received if from His Father in Heaven (Great
Grandfather God), etc.,
(6)
He
impregnated his wives in heaven in the way that women get pregnant on earth,
(Brigham Young added that there is no other process of creation.)
(7)
Through
procreation God and his multiple wives created billions of spirit children
(it's a woman's duty to be eternally pregnant),
(8)
The
spirit children fought a war in heaven to preserve agency and Satan (one of
Jesus' brothers, a son of God, and one of the brothers of the rest of God's
children) was cast down to earth to tempt mankind to sin,
(9)
It
is the duty of women to prepare bodies for as many spirits as possible (women
practice having babies on earth and will continue to do it for eternity) and
men get to put them there. Polygamy is
the order of marriage in heaven.
(10)
Jesus
was one of God's spirit children just like the rest of us, making Him a spirit
brother of mankind (equal but smarter and better behaved),
(11)
Men
and women are supposed to prove that they are worthy to live in the highest
kind of heaven there is--the highest degree of glory of the celestial
kingdom--based on their deeds in this life (Abraham 3:22-23). They have to prove that they are worthy to be
a god.
(12)
Only
"valiant” members of the church will enter the highest degree of glory of the
celestial kingdom (D&C 76:50-70). Others who are really good but don't become members will be declared
"not valiant." (D&C 76:72-78).
(13)
Jesus
got his physical body because God the Father had sexual intercourse with Mary,
making Him Jesus' biological father as well as his spiritual father. Bruce R. McConkie, a former apostle says that
1 Nephi
(14)
Jesus'
sacrifice on the cross didn't really pay for the sins of mankind--it was during
His pleading in Gethsemane for the Father to "remove this cup from me” that He
paid for everyone's sins--even though the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine
and Covenants all say He paid for everyone's sins on the cross.
(15)
Mormon
leaders taught for decades (late 1840's to 1904) that unless members practiced
polygamy they could not enjoy the highest degree of the celestial kingdom
because it was the most important law given to mankind.
(16)
Mormon
leaders taught that black individuals were unworthy to hold the Mormon
priesthood because they had been cursed by God for their lack of valiance
before coming to earth during the war in heaven. They had not been supportive enough of God
and Jesus and were cursed for their lack of faith with a dark skin and
miserable lives (Joseph Fielding Smith, "The Way to Perfection”). Brigham Young decreed that if a black
male/female married a white person only death "on the spot” for both of them
could atone for that drastic sin.
(17)
Joseph
Smith changed his story about the First Vision several times beginning in 1832
and ending in about 1840. Each new
version was more impressive than the preceding one, but contradicted "facts” in
earlier versions, and actual events in his life.
(18)
Joseph
Smith radically changed the meaning of many verses in the Book of Mormon and
Doctrine and Covenants after claiming that the original accounts had been
revealed to him by God--leaving open the question, "Was God confused or did
Joseph get it wrong after claiming to have gotten it right?"
(19)
The Book of Mormon doctrines and beliefs revealed in the Nauvoo period, and
still present today do not resemble those that Joseph adapted, changed, revised,
contradicted and altered later in his life and put forth as "official
doctrines."
(20)
Joseph
preyed on gullible young women to carry out his sexual fantasies under the
guise of obedience to God. He told
adolescent girls as young as 14 that they would forfeit their own and their family's
right to eternal life if they didn't marry him and consummate the marriage in
the customary way. He would be indicted
and convicted of rape and other sex crimes today. In Joseph's case however, he
married more than a dozen young women, plus other men's wives, 5 pairs of
sisters, and a mother and a daughter.
(21)
A
mountain of good scientific evidence proves conclusively that the Book of
Mormon could not possibly be what Joseph claimed. The archaeological and DNA evidence alone are
devastating to his claims.
(22)
The
Three Witnesses did not see anything. They admitted later in life that they saw gold plates "with their
spiritual eyes” and not in a literal, physical sense.
(23)
The
There is no attempt whatever to inform investigators what is
at the core of Mormonism or what the controversial issues are. It robs investigators of the opportunity to
make an informed choice about something they assume affects their eternal
state. Instead they don't know what
they're really joining. The process
behind the strategy is this. The young
missionaries, most of whom have never read the Bible through, are unaware of
the facts that contradict the missionary discussions they repeat by
memory. They think they have been
prepared by the crack troops in the Missionary Training Centers to handle
important questions, yet they have no knowledge of the history or doctrine of the
church they represent. I speak as an
expert on the subject. I taught,
prepared, and trained the prospective missionaries for 27 years. One of the stated purposes of the seminary
program is to train missionaries. (Seminary is a religious education program for those in grades
9-12.) Part of the Institute curriculum
is a religion class called Mission Preparation. (Institute is weekday religious instruction for college students.) The class avoided any hint that there are
mountains of evidence that contradict and undermine the foundations of the
church's doctrine and history. The
counsel is, "bear your testimony because no one can dispute your own personal
experience with the Holy Ghost” or words to that effect. It's unethical and borders on brainwashing. It mocks the principle of informed
consent. Apostle Boyd K. Packer
commanded CES teachers to teach only a version of history and doctrine that
builds faith. Not only is this practice
offensive, it is hypocritical coming from one who claims that the Mormon Church
is superior to all others.
I recall that shortly after being baptized, the Branch
President called us in to inform us that we were placing our eternal lives in
jeopardy if we continued to use artificial birth control. It was quite an intrusion into the most
personal aspect of our marriage. He
found out because a gossipy member had been quizzing me on what kind of birth
control we used, and I told him that we used the pill. He reported this sin to the Branch President. He retrieved dozens of quotations from church
presidents and apostles from his files (none more contemporary than 1947) that
warned the members against the evils of birth control. We had married young with the idea that we
would finish college before we began to have children. Fearing that God would punish us for
eternity, we stopped using the pill and Teresa immediately became pregnant.
We pretty much lived by the rule that "when the prophet
speaks the thinking has been done" and, "If you don't support your bishop [or
Branch President] you don't sustain the prophet." In fact that idea was reinforced in various
ways over and over again for the next 33 years. It made our lives miserable because the brethren made unreasonable and
sometimes impossible demands. It often placed us in tortuous double binds. I was supposed to be a model family man, but
I was supposed to never turn down a calling even if it meant being away from
home way too much while my wife was having babies just over a year apart. We feel silly now for being so gullible and
giving away our sacred right to plan our family ourselves.
Being a member of the Mormon Church meant that I was rarely
at home to help my wife with our growing family. I was attending meetings and feeling very
important. It was a nightmare for
Teresa. She began to wonder way back
then if the church was a bunch of baloney. It couldn't be true or else they would have more sense than to make such
unreasonable demands on us. Having to
raise a lot of small children without any help was killing her. But the church's view of women was that they
were put on earth to have as many children as they could bear and raise
them. We were told that Mormons were
supposed to provide homes for righteous spirits that waited in the pre-mortal
existence to come into our families. If
Mormons didn't have a lot of babies, then those poor spirits would have to go
to the homes of the Gentiles--non-members. That would be a tragedy. Surveys
reveal that that Mormons freely admit that they usually have larger families
than the norm is because they see it as a religious duty ("The Religion &
Family Connection: Social Science Perspectives” Edited by Darwin L. Thomas [
Inherent in such an attitude is arrogance and a
not-so-subtle dismissal of women as little more than baby factories though
members deny it. When we joined the
church females were counseled to raise up their children to the Lord, provide a
perfect home, teach their children the gospel, always be happy and cheerful,
make perfect home made bread and rolls, visit the sick, do visiting teaching
every month without fail, be a great and beautiful wife, be intelligent and
conversant with world affairs, never turn down a calling, and (stay beautiful
for your husband)--all the while having babies as fast as possible. We were never, ever, even slightly encouraged to use some sort of family
planning or birth control to protect Teresa's health. We were however reminded in various meetings
over the years to avoid being selfish and think of the millions of spirits who
needed to gain physical bodies. (Ezra
Taft Benson, "To the Mothers in
By the late 1980s and early 1990s Mormons began to hear the
leaders harp on having babies as fast as they could, less and less. After some overzealous PH leaders took it
upon them selves to meddle too much by telling couples what kinds of sexual
positions were approved of the Lord, they began to pull back. I remember sitting with President K in a
temple recommend interview in
Some overzealous PH leaders even went into great detail with
teens, teaching them about sexual encounters they had no knowledge of
before. The leaders received a lot of
complaints about those interviews. Couples since that time have been given more control over their
reproductive choices. PH leaders have
been ordered not to meddle in the affairs of married couples. It only took 150 years for that enlightened counsel.
Pregnancy dragged Teresa through a knot-hole backwards. Morning sickness turned into all-day,
everyday nausea. She never had that
"glow” that the Mormon men insist women get when they are pregnant. The morning sickness increased with each of
our five children. Teresa was ready to
die after our last baby. She was worn
out. Her tank was completely empty and
yet she needed to do more, or so the church told her over and over again. She was called to serve in the Primary
Presidency right after the birth of our 5th child. She couldn't say no because I worked for the
church and it might cast a bad light on my employment. Most Mormons when being transparent and
completely honest admit that they feel nagging guilt most of the time for all
kinds of things. Sometimes it's because
they would like to say "no” to a calling and sometimes it's because they feel
they are not doing enough to be approved by God. The leaders use guilt in liberal doses to
prod the members along. "A religion that
doesn't require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to
produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation." (Joseph Smith, "Lectures on Faith” Kirtland, Ohio, December 1834.)
After our first baby, we needed to go to the temple, get
married again so God would deem us worthy, (D&C 132:15-19) and have the
baby sealed to us so we could live together in eternity as a forever
family. Otherwise, no matter how
Christ-like we were for the rest of our lives, we would never make it to the
highest degree of glory of the celestial kingdom (D&C 131:1-4). Though there is nothing in the Bible or Book
or Mormon about temple marriage being a necessary pre-requisite because he
hadn't invented it yet. Joseph Smith
added this ordinance to the Mormon requirements in the 1840's during the Nauvoo
period. There is much evidence that his
reason for adding the eternal marriage component was so he could use it to
cloak his polygamous activities. Nowadays, the church never refers to it in those terms, and most members
are unaware of Joseph's original intentions for the ceremony (Fawn Brodie, "No
Man Knows My History” (2nd
ed., rev. and enl., 1st Vintage Book, July 1995); or Richard Van Wagoner's, "Mormon
Polygamy: A History, 2nd Edition (Signature Books Incorporated,
1989); also David John Buerger "The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon
Temple Worship” (Signature Books Incorporated, December 2002)).
We were told our civil marriage in the
We weren't very smart. Teresa was hemorrhaging pretty badly from the birth of our first
child. The birth had been a difficult
one for her. We had no business jumping
in the car with well-meaning Mormon handlers determined to get us to the temple
in
I didn't see one angel, or departed spirit in the
temple! I did get the jolt of my
life. The ritualistic ceremony enacted
by live actors in the temple was shocking and disappointing. The special covenants were the usual kind
except for the extraordinary promise to be willing to give everything including
one's life if the church required it. The penalties and oaths for not keeping secrets were bizarre and pointed
to a kind of paranoia. I promised to
have my throat slit if I ever revealed anything that I saw or heard in the
temple. I wondered what all the secrecy
was about. Years later when I learned
that Joseph Smith borrowed heavily from Masonic ceremonies then added his own
tweaks to it I learned why. His closest
Masonic friends and church leaders admitted that Joseph wanted the people to
learn to keep a secret. His oaths and
penalties were designed to cloak his subversive behavior--sleeping with other
men's wives, and preying on teenage girls with proposals of marriage--without
his wife's knowledge or consent. It's
estimated that 95% of the members during the Nauvoo period did not know that he
was practicing polygamy, including taking other men's wives while still legally
married to them, because he was so adept at deceit and swearing others to
secrecy. The church is still practicing
the art of cover-up, jab and parry. A
number of returned missionaries confessed to me during my years of teaching
that they had no idea that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. "I thought it started with Brigham Young,”
was the common response.
Teresa and I sat in our motel room after the temple
experience in utter shock and decided that the ceremony was so weird we never
wanted to go back. We weren't allowed to
sit together in the temple during the ceremony. Men and women are separated. That
bothered us and we couldn't figure out why. We were wearing the official Mormon temple under garment now too. It was a one-piece, awkward looking thing
that you climbed into the neck to put on. A 90 year-old temple worker told me during the official instruction in
the temple that the temple garment was so sacred that we could not take it off
except to bathe. He emphasized that we
could not remove them for any other reason (except bathing, sports and
swimming)! It took us several years to
learn that the guy was wrong and we sacrificed an important degree of intimacy
because of it. I feel really stupid
revealing that. It's humiliating. But I believe that the responsibility rests
with the church leaders and temple workers. Why in the world wouldn't the church leaders make absolutely sure that
members were clear about garments--that husbands and wives may share intimacy
without them? I share this because as
stupid as it makes me look, we're not the only ones who received this kind of
counsel. Others I have spoken to
received similar advice and acted in the same way, until like me, they received
"further light and knowledge” on the subject or decided it was just plain
dumb.
That's the result of being trained not to question someone
in authority. For an interesting and
alarming study about unquestioning obedience to authority figures by society
read about Stanley Milgram's 1960's experiments in social psychology. He searched for reasons why Nazi leaders and
soldiers would comply with orders to kill millions of Jews. He was the son of a holocaust survivor. He found that experimental subjects placed in
the role of "teacher” administered 330 – 450 volts of electricity (or so the
subject thought) to "learners” if they answered a question incorrectly. An authority figure in a lab coat and
carrying a clip board told them to administer lethal doses of electric
shock. Despite their protests and
troubled consciences, 65% of them complied with orders. His experiments have been replicated and show
that otherwise upright persons will cause extreme suffering to others rather
than disobey authority. (Stanley Milgram, "Obedience to Authority”
[HarperCollins Publishers 1983]; also Thomas Blass, "Obedience to Authority:
Current Perspectives on the Milgram Paradigm” (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Inc. 2000). Mormon leaders have much to
gain by promoting their authoritarian status.
I wish we hadn't let our handlers talk us into going back to
the temple for another session. Our
first impressions were correct. It's
ritual devoid of any real meaning in my opinion. The atonement is mentioned but certainly
isn't the primary focus of the endowment. I was a set apart veil worker in the
What does that say about Mormons' depiction of God? The God I worshipped as a Mormon represents
a rather arbitrary, sometimes loving, sometimes cruel, and sometimes illogical
Being (bipolar disorder). According to
them He's always testing you by not answering a prayer to heal a loved one from
cancer and death, yet He helps a tot find a toy after praying; or a distraught
teen to find their homework. These are
the kinds of stories common among Mormons--maybe other Christians too for that
matter, although I never a heard an abundance of those kinds of remarkable stories
when I grew up as Methodist. After maturing
a few years I could not accept the fickle God that Mormons described and
worshipped.
I have done a lot of thinking about the temple. I had read and heard the quote by President
McKay (a former church prophet now deceased) that he was just beginning to
understand the endowment after decades of regular attendance. I worked so hard trying to understand the
endowment that I got headaches after temple sessions. I memorized the whole session. I tried to mine the gold from the words and
phrases of the endowment ceremony. I
wanted to understand the mysteries of the sacred symbolism. I talked to temple workers and asked them
questions. I compared what I learned
with others. The symbolism is not
clear. It's all a matter of individual
interpretation. Everyone makes up their
own ideas--some of them pretty bizarre. The symbolism makes sense to me when you connect it to its
origins--Masonry, and swearing oaths to keep secrets. No wonder the leaders don't want members to
describe the ceremonies outside the temple. The mystique would suddenly disappear and leaders would have to explain
everything from odd temple clothing and underwear to the bizarre penalties that
used to panic members. How would they
explain the blatant anti-Catholic and anti-Protestant themes used to mock them
until they were removed?
The endowment and marriage ceremony creates an elite group
of Mormons who are superior to those not endowed. And a whole lot superior to the rest of the
world. The endowed supposedly possess
secret knowledge that only the worthy and elect are privileged to have. It's not sacred, it's secret. It also pre-supposes that God is arbitrary
and requires that any rewards in heaven are the equivalent to wages earned here
on earth by good deeds. Grace from Christ
becomes irrelevant and meaningless despite the lip service paid.
In the spirit of being the patriarch in my family I messed
up a lot. To encourage her, I'd tell
Teresa to try to be like Sister ________. Finally she warned me to shut my yap about Sister _______ or I could go
find someone like her! I started to get
it. I stopped being trying to be a
dominating, patriarchal male who is supposed to have the last word on all
subjects. Besides she is smarter than
me. I loved Teresa a lot more than the
church. In fact, one thing that kept me
trying so hard to be a good Mormon was so I could live with Teresa in heaven
after this life. I promised to stop
badgering her about doing more missionary work, writing in her journal, doing
genealogy, praying and fasting, having the missionaries over for dinner, being
more perky and happy, bearing her testimony, being more enthused about family
home evening, reading scriptures to the kids, and about a billion other things
that only made her feel like she could never do enough to please the church
leaders or me. She told me to quit
worrying about her eternal life. "Look
Ken!” she would say, "I'm a good person
and God isn't going to love me a whole lot more if I keep a journal! And you're a good man. You don't have to feel guilty about
everything in the world just because they tell you to." She is wise.
Working hard to earn our salvation took place especially in
the 1970s and 1980s before the church began to revise their teachings. BYU religion teachers and other writers
reversed 150 years of doctrinal silliness and helped members learn that grace
was a good thing. Up to the mid 1980's
grace as a legitimate Christian principle was mocked and belittled. General authorities and BYU religious authors
admit to teaching that being saved by the grace of Christ was false doctrine.
Mormons hated being compared to certain conservative Christian groups who
emphasized the role of grace in salvation. It was not uncommon at all in those days to hear testimony after testimony
in general conference and the local meetings exhort members to do good works
and earn their salvation. Grace was just
a license to commit sin and still get to heaven. They called it "cheap grace." I think they were quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(1906-1945).
Something happened in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990's
though. So many national media reports
were published about Mormon women suffering clinical depression in huge numbers
and
Almost immediately after joining the church I wanted to
become an Institute Director in the Church Education System (CES), like Brother
R, the Branch President/Institute Director at the Ellensburg Institute of
Religion. He seemed wise to someone
insecure and dependent like me. He had
an encyclopedia-like brain when it came to answering church questions. Even when I was a Methodist growing up, I had
always wanted to become learned in the scriptures. This was my chance. I was studying to become a school teacher at
Central Washington State College. After
baptism I decided to become a teacher for the Church Education System. It was a real status symbol to declare your
intention to become an Institute teacher. Several of the guys in the small branch had confirmed that it was their
life time dream too. They had served
missions but I hadn't. I'd have to study
extra hard, and serve more diligently than others to make the grade if I wanted
to teach for the church. I knew that I
was up for the challenge. Ironically, none of them made it and I did.
Working for the
church meant I was going to be totally committed to it and do anything I was
asked without question. Though I didn't
realize it yet I had just surrendered the right to think critically for myself
and question things the church told me was true but made no sense. I would just swallow everything without
complaint, assuming that all the flawed mortal leaders were speaking for God,
like a good CES soldier.
I gave up my right to question because I made it my calling
to over-compensate for not serving a full-time mission for the church. I had to make up for the fact that:
(1) I had not served in a 3rd world country,
sleeping on dirt floors!
(2) I had no miraculous stories about passing through an
angry mob unharmed because God miraculously blinded them.
(3) I had never raised anyone from the dead through a PH
blessing.
(4) I hadn't spoken in a foreign tongue in the most eloquent
way, converting a whole congregation without knowing what I had said (because I
was overcome with the Spirit).
(5) I hadn't dusted off my shoes and later read about the
village mayor's house burning down because he had cruelly treated some Mormon
missionaries just the day before.
(6) I had never confounded a mean South American Catholic
priest in the presence of a potential convert proving once and for all that
Mormonism was true.
(7) I had never cast out the devil from anyone's house to
rid it of spiritual phenomena--like the house in the Amityville Horror
movie.
(8) An ancient, translated Nephite (Book of Mormon apostle)
never appeared to me!
I worked with CES teachers who solemnly swore that they had
experienced these things while serving their missions. I was at a real disadvantage compared to
these other guys.
I wish I hadn't given up my right to question the teaching
that was heard nearly every Sunday in church meetings and almost as frequently
in Institute classes--the Lord's prophet will never lead the church astray." How silly. Of course a prophet can lead people
astray. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and
the many of the LDS prophets have all taught things and did things that are
crazy and border on incompetent. Many of
them engaged in outright deceit. My
counseling training led me to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was narcissistic
and neurotic. If he were living today he
would be viewed as another David Koresh or Jim Jones. LDS doctrine teaches that a war in heaven was
fought to preserve the right to make choices. LDS prophets can make choices that are wrong and lead the church
astray. The church leaders want to make
sure that the divine mystique of general authorities remains intact. They cannot appear to be human, so myths like
this one are kept alive. If you teach
for the church you are supposed to make sure that you keep the myth alive in
the minds of your students. Your charge
is to convince them that the prophet can never lead the church astray and when
he speaks on any subject he is essentially speaking the words God would speak
if He were present. I used to bear
fervent testimony to that. I supported
it with the conviction that God actually appears and talks to the apostles and
prophets in person regularly. Lots of
seminary and institute teachers believe that and teach it. When I began to question it I was treated
like a traitor by other CES teachers and some students.
Teaching seminary or institute or serving in some
"important” church calling puts huge pressure on the one called to serve to
preserve the status of the role. There
is good literature on the subject of living up to a "role” that you've been
assigned. A famous experiment conducted
at
After graduating from college in 1972 I became a
schoolteacher. I taught 6th
grade just outside
I wish I had noticed the contradictions in the words of the
men in
I wanted to go to work for the church full time and enjoy
all the prestige (the role) of being a walking encyclopedia of all things
related to the church. I applied and was
hired by the Church Education System in 1975. I should have never quit teaching sixth grade. I loved it and it was more fun that I ever
had teaching for the church. But I
admit, I also loved teaching the kids in Early Morning Seminary. I thought if teaching for the church is this
much fun, I couldn't lose. As I look
back, I could have taught a bag of hammers and it would have been fun. I just loved teaching. The interaction with the kids was the big
attraction to me. I loved recess,
tetherball, foursquare, and hitting flies during fly-up.
I was hired by CES after teaching school for 3 years. We were transferred to
Brother S was the District Coordinator in
I endured a fair amount of harassment from the Church
Education System District Coordinator. Once he accused me of partying with the kids all the time because I
scored exceptionally high on a student evaluation during my first year of
teaching. I had worked my tail off to
create a rich learning experience that was fun. He gave me a good tongue-lashing. My wife who was present at the bizarre event was as stunned and
bewildered as I was. I began to think
back on my 3 years teaching in the public schools in
After 3 years in
During my stint in
I reflected on the lack of objective study by me and others
in the church. Before leaving
In the mid 1980's I purchased a copy
of a book by two LDS female authors. It
was entitled Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith by Valeen Tippetts
Avery and Linda King Newell. It was an
unsanitized, objective biography about Joseph Smith's first wife. It rocked our world! I read it to Teresa as each new disclosure
about Joseph's true character and behavior chipped away at my traditional
beliefs about him and the church he created. Using impeccable sources it plainly revealed that Joseph Smith was a
rank adulterer and compulsive liar for a good part of his life. He began as a con artist, bilking gullible
people out of their money, promising them that he could "see” treasures of
silver and gold far beneath the earth's surface using his peep stone. For the first time in my church career it
became embarrassingly obvious that the church leaders had gone to great lengths
to hide scores of flaws possessed by the church's revered founder. Others who were loyal Mormons minimized his
deception and adultery and only grudgingly admitted that Joseph had flaws. "But all prophets have a few flaws,” the
orthodox reasoned at a CES Symposium at BYU. I had a hard time explaining away Joseph's glaring problems with
adultery and lying.
I shared the contents of the book with a good Mormon friend
and he told me that I was stupid for reading "that scum." He said, "You don't read Playboy to learn
that pornography is bad. You shouldn't
read garbage about Joseph Smith only to learn that he was human." He was going to extraordinary lengths to be
loyal. I thought he was placing loyalty
above integrity. Teresa and I agreed
that Joseph Smith was not like the rest of us. The church ranked him far above the rest of us--a true representative of
God. Yet he had the nerve to do things
and command others to do things that were morally indefensible, and then lie
about it to the members and the world if he needed to get out of a jam. I wondered if he was narcissistic, a sexual
predator, and an obsessive liar. The
intimidation and threats he used to coerce teen-age girls to marry him were
inexcusable. I resisted these feelings
however because I depended on the church for employment. I was too chicken to quit. I didn't figure I had much room to criticize
Joseph Smith if I didn't have the courage of my own convictions, I
reasoned. So I tried to make excuses for
Joseph and find reasons why I must be wrong about him.
I began subscribing to Dialogue:
A Journal of Mormon Thought. I also
read Sunstone when I could get my hands on one. It was refreshing because these works were
honest and objective about Mormon history, culture, literature. They were not afraid to discuss controversial
issues. It wasn't the same old
"rah-rah-rah, aren't we great!” stuff you're given in church all the time. I had a friend who I talked with in my ward
in
My friend introduced me to the writings of Gerald and Sandra
Tanner, former Mormons, regarded as evil, unscrupulous, anti-Mormons by the
members and leaders of the church. They
researched and published Mormon leaders' duplicity and hypocrisy from 1830 to
the present. I found that I could get
more accurate and honest information about church history and doctrine from
them than the church. I didn't always
agree with their interpretations of the facts, but the evidence they presented
was impressive. The Tanners were
certainly more honest than the church leaders and scholars from F.A.R.M.S. (a
group of polemics who sometimes use dirty tricks and character assassination to
defend the church, no matter how tortured the logic or facts. The offices are housed on the BYU
campus). The Tanners documented hundreds
(I think) of incidents where church leaders routinely lied to protect the
church (See Shadow or Reality, or their Utah Lighthouse Ministry website). Lest someone think that the Tanners led me
out, I never read Shadow or Reality until last year. I discovered that the church regularly
branded anyone who told the truth about church history and leaders as enemies,
apostates, and anti-Mormons. I began to
recognize that church leaders repeatedly engaged in a practice called "lying
for the Lord” when they felt it necessary to protect themselves or the church's
image of infallibility. They engaged in
devious and mean-spirited tactics to punish those who threatened their version
of history and events. It began in the
days of Joseph Smith and was alive and well in the current church. Being honest isn't a primary objective when
protecting the church's image.
I read many well-documented works
that described the real history of the church. Then I noted what church leaders or CES leaders said about the author
and his/her work. Almost without
exception, the unbiased and objective works were heavily criticized. The church leaders circled the wagons and
attacked the character of the author and sermonized against the evils of
intellectuals who sought to destroy the faith of the members. If an author didn't use enough references he
was criticized for that. If he used lots
of them he was criticized for using too many. And in every case, the author would be attacked for undermining the
faith of the members. The leaders
demanded that everything be written to make it appear that God guided the
church leaders in every thing--Ezra Taft Benson demanded as much of Church
Educators teachers. It seemed not to
occur to those attacking honest historians that it demonstrates a lack of faith
in your message to react in such a defensive way; that church leaders should
welcome honesty and fairness; and that it is unbecoming a Christian to react in
such a non-charitable way toward well-meaning members trying to publish ethical
and honest work. It saddened me to hear
that excellent Mormon historians with impeccable credentials were threatened
with loss of membership privileges, loss of employment in church schools, and
in some cases, excommunication for being objective and truthful. I slowly stopped trusting everything the
leaders claimed.
It appeared to me that they were
engaged in a war with "intellectuals and academics." It seemed odd to me that on the one hand
members bragged about the intellect of Apostles James E. Talmage, John Widtsoe,
Orson Pratt and others, yet attempted to denigrate the contemporary
intellectuals and academics. Armand
Mauss pointed out in his book, "The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle
with Assimilation,” (University of Illinois Press 1994) that intellectuals were
viewed as suspect when greater numbers of general authorities with a
professional background in law, business and church education were called. Though there is an occasional thinker like
Dallin Oaks or Neal Maxwell, they appear to have given up their right to
exercise their intellect, in order to fill their role as protectors of the
image of the church, as Zimbardo's experiments indicate.
The evidence grew that the church
wasn't what it advertised itself to be. I attended graduate school to become a licensed counselor. At first, I was a suspicious, narrow-minded
Mormon who believed that all a person needed to know is the true gospel
(Mormonism) in order to be successful at business, education, or anything
else. I soon learned that I was a naïve,
narrow, bigoted, little weasel. I
learned that the theories of education, psychology and counseling were valuable
to gain an understanding of how great theories were tested and knowledge has
increased in the social sciences. I
learned that many of the great men and women of science worked hard to discover
and invent wonderful accoutrements to life though they may have been unbelievers. I marveled at the degree of Christian charity
and compassion some of my atheist or agnostic professors exhibited. I felt small and wondered why I wasn't better
than they were because I was a member of the true church and a high priest. I was supposed to be superior since I was a
Mormon! It dawned on me finally, after
breaking through the protective bubble, that the ingrained belief that the only
good people were Mormons was wrong. I
assumed that all the stuff the church leaders and members taught about not
being happy unless you were a loyal Mormon was right in spite of all the
evidence to the contrary. I hadn't
questioned it before (enough).
I began to test the hypothesis that Mormons were happier and
better than everyone else by observation. The evidence was overwhelming that Mormons are not happier or better
than everyone/anyone else. It sounds so
silly that I had to test it. I didn't
fully realize it then, but I began to discover that Mormons present all sorts
of false evidence to prove their superiority.
They often present social evidence. For instance a scientist (non-Mormon) in
Another piece of popular social evidence is that Mormonism
is the fastest growing church in the western hemisphere. Besides being inaccurate, it is hardly
evidence that a church is the only true
Mormons like to point to marriage and divorce rates and
other statistics that prove that the Mormon Church is the only true
After getting my Masters I opened a
private counseling practice on weekends and evenings. I had a thriving practice consisting of
Mormons. I enjoyed working with clients
on developmental problems such as depression, anxiety, and stress related
issues and marriage counseling. I tried
my best to stay abreast of the best practices in the field and apply them.
I saw the good-old-boys network in
action. In most cases an LDS woman would
come in for help because she was being mistreated by her LDS husband. The woman usually blamed herself for her
inability to please her husband or make the marriage work. Feeling responsible for all kinds of things
she couldn't possibly control, invariably came from the church. Consistently she would quote some church
leader or a Relief Society lesson that placed blame on women for not being able
to keep a husband and children happy. After all, wives and moms set the tone for the home!
 A
bishop told a woman whose husband had begun an affair and stated his intention
to get a divorce, to "learn to put on makeup, buy some prettier clothes, lose
some weight, and fix yourself up and maybe you can convince him to stay." He
didn't tell the damned loser who committed adultery, "She stayed by your side
while you battled alcoholism for a dozen years and humiliated your family
hundreds of times. Don't even think
about accusing your wife of not meeting your needs!” I did.
In one case, a man was
excommunicated for committing adultery more than a dozen times during his
marriage over a decade or more. I sat on
the high council court. Instead of reaming
the guy out and telling him what a rat he was, the stake president talked for
no less than 30 minutes to the wife and mother of his 8 children. The stake president lectured her and told her
to be a better wife. He accused her and her family of putting too much pressure
on him--the same family that gave him money for land, a house, and everything
else the guy owned. The adulterer
listened to it all and beamed! The lesson
from the stake president was clear: "if you had been a better wife, he wouldn't
have been tempted to go to other women."
In another case, a woman reported that
he children were being abused by their father, a member of the Elders Quorum
Presidency. I told her to kick him out
and get the bishop to help her support the kids--Mormons are famous for helping
members using their famous welfare system. She called me back the next day and told me something incredible. Her PH leader husband denied everything and
instead of helping her, the bishop got mad at her and me. He told her that she was never to come to me
for counseling again. I was out to
destroy their eternal family, he said. He told her that he would handle the marital problems and she was not to
leave her husband or ask him to leave as I had advised her (Hello! Incest is
not a "marital problem?!”). He spoke
with her husband who denied everything and wept. He admitted to some lesser problems like
losing his temper. The bishop
confidently assured the wife that her husband was a repentant man and she had
nothing to worry about. I was ready to
explode. I didn't hear from her for
months. She called me back in agony to
report that her husband had "gotten to” another one of the little girls. I told her to leave. She said she was not only leaving her
husband, she was leaving the church and telling the (insert expletive here)
bishop to go to hell. She did. A popular teaching is that you are to follow
the brethren and even if they tell you to do something wrong you'll be blessed
anyway for being obedient. This is a
paraphrase of President Heber J. Grant's statement, quoted by Apostle Marion G.
Romney in 1960, "Always keep your eye on the President of the church, and if he
ever tells you to do anything, even if it is wrong, and you do it, the Lord
will bless you for it but you don't need to worry. The Lord will never let his mouthpiece lead
the people astray." (Conference Report, October 1960, p. 78)
I could go on and on with literally
dozens of stories about incompetent PH leaders who pretended some degree of
skill in counseling despite never having spent one minute in formal
training. Some have sense enough to know
when they were in over their heads. Many
more do not. They relied on their
"mantle of authority” that gave them access to special inspiration from God. It's bestowed on all bishops and stake
presidents by the laying on of hands. Most believe it gives them almost magical power to know how to solve any
problem. In point of fact, I watched
them ruin dozens of lives, and dispense destructive or patently stupid advice
over and over again. Ironically, after
our last interview with the Bishop who criticized me for reading my scriptures
too much in church had just counseled a single mom to move to
I became convinced that women in the
church did not stand a chance unless they happened to be in a ward with a
bishop who was extra sensitive. That
would have made him a rare exception. It
was a hit and miss proposition. Yet, as
every good Mormon knows, the person who doesn't sustain his bishop does not
sustain the president of the church. By
extension, that person does not sustain God.
In other words, Mormons are supposed to presume that what the bishop
advises them to do is what God would tell them if He were present. After some time watching the bishops dispense
counsel I rejected the principle as ridiculous. It's so much a main thread in the fabric of Mormonism however, that
members are routinely asked in interviews if they sustain the local leaders of
the church. If they don't, they may face
certain spiritual consequences and considered unworthy to hold a temple
recommend. Those not holding a current
temple recommend are of course unworthy to inherit the celestial kingdom. They are not valiant! (Doctrine and Covenants
76:79)
Counseling taught me how important
it is not to give up the right to think and make decisions about your
own life. It de-programmed me and
separated me from the idea that church leaders always know best regarding
personal matters. I remember arguing
with a bishop about it in his office. He
was reassuring me that he was inspired with regard to some counsel he gave that
I couldn't accept. I countered with a
question: "Please tell me what's going on right now in my sons' lives! Tell me what I need to do." Of course, he wanted information about my
boys. I pointed out to him that if he
was as inspired as he wanted me to believe, that he only had to repeat the
words that came to his mind from God. I
asked to know what God was telling him--it's just like giving a blessing. He stammered a bit and admitted that he
didn't know about current affairs in my household as to "specific issues." I told him that that was precisely why I
didn't think he was in a position to act infallible. If God truly spoke to him he wouldn't be
fishing for information. It didn't
impress him but it was a watershed moment for me. I began to declare my independence from the
mindless submission to white males (always white and always male) who merely
flew by the seat of their pants, pretending to be something they are not. Thankfully some bishops are humble and aware
of their limitations.
Mark Hofmann and the Forgeries
Most Mormons were at first elated
then troubled by the documents that Mark Hofmann, forger extraordinaire began
marching through the First Presidency's office in the mid 1980's. Members first thought that the documents
would prove beyond all doubt that Joseph Smith was a true prophet; the version
of history taught by the church would be vindicated and the church would be
proved to be the only true church on earth. It became clear that the message from the documents was that Joseph and
others were uneducated, superstitious and prone to make up stories about the
appearance of heavenly beings. It was
embarrassing.
When the Salamander Letter was
published (a forged document claiming that a white salamander gave revelations
to Joseph instead of the angel
President Kimball posed for a
now-famous Church News photograph holding the magnifying glass over a forged
document he thought was authentic, with Mark Hofmann (liar and forger) standing
next to him--arm around his shoulders. It
was not encouraging to learn that the Lord's prophet, who supposedly held all
the keys of the dispensation, including the keys of discernment had been duped. He and all the other apostles didn't have a
clue that Hofmann was a liar and murderer. Despite all the stories I had repeated in seminary to the kids about the
all-knowing power of discernment the prophets possessed, it turned out that
they were duped as easily as anyone else. In their eagerness to suppress documents embarrassing to the church,
they had shelled out over $900,000 worth of rare church antiquities and cash to
Hofmann.
I read books about the Hofmann
affair--4 of them. Except for the one by
Richard Turley where his purpose for writing was to exonerate the general
authorities at all costs, the other 3 admitted that the leaders had been duped,
had been tried to suppress information from members if it was unfavorable, and
obstructed justice. The authorities
looked even more like old, incompetent, paranoid fools when Turley's book
revealed that the First Presidency's vault contained the famous McLellin papers
that Hofmann had promised to produce. The Mormon leaders had no idea they were there--since 1908. When they were discovered in 1986, they told
no one for six years, though that information would have been helpful for law
enforcement. If after finding them they
admitted that the collection had been there all the time it would have proven
critics right who accused them of covering up information. They decided to stay tight lipped instead of
turning over the document to the police who desperately needed it to make the
charges stick against Hofmann. It was
another example of cover-ups, deceit and getting caught red handed. For a church who loves to brag about
"obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law” (12th Article of Faith),
it was embarrassing to be a member and learn how they conducted themselves.
It made me angrier when Dallin Oaks, through self righteous
posturing took the press to task for accusing the church leaders of shoddy
conduct. He deliberately tried to
deceive the public into believing that his error filled tirade was accurate and
that the church had been a victim of unfair publicity. Facts plainly pointed to
a different conclusion. I lost more
respect for the church's leaders. They
appeared to be just like politicians when caught in a scandal--lie and claim
that the media is to blame for their troubles.
I remember talking to a CES
colleague about the Hofmann affair after he was sentenced to life in prison
through a plea bargain. I asked him how
he felt about the church's conduct and the fact that the leaders seemed to be
no more inspired than the average Joe on the street. He went to great lengths to defend the
leaders. After all, they were gentle and
trusting men who took people at their word in good faith, he insisted. Because the colleague was my boss I didn't
challenge him. But it was obvious to me
that when it suited them the Mormons regaled each other with stories about the
God-given power of discernment prophets possess. Now when it was obvious that they were simply
old white gentlemen who had duped, they were extra gentle and compassionate,
but not incompetent. I didn't buy it.
Burn Out
I was burning out as a seminary
teacher. After 12 years I think most of
the kids knew that I cared about them. But I needed a change. I didn't
believe a lot of what the church taught and I was getting cynical and having a
hard time hiding it.
I almost took a job as the director
of a weight management program run by a local hospital. I contracted my services to them as a
counselor for an eating disorder program in the evenings. I didn't take the full-time job, even though
I desperately wanted out of CES because I wasn't convinced that the program was
going to survive. I figured I'd be out
looking for a job within a year. I was
wrong. It took the program a year and a
half to fold. Maybe I should have taken
the job anyway.
CES offered me the opportunity to
move to
It was a refreshing new start for
me. I decided to rededicate myself to
teaching what the church told me to. After all, if I was going to crow about ethics I needed to be ethical
and stand behind commitments I signed my name to. So I tried to overlook all the faults I could
find with the church's leaders, the doctrine, the drastically revised history
and all the rest. I wanted to avoid
controversy. I had experienced some in
After settling in at
I thought that the church expected
me to become well-read and knowledgeable about all things connected with the
church's history and doctrine in order to answer questions and teach
interesting lessons with some depth. The
entry under "Church Education System” in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism says
that a fundamental principle of Mormonism is a strong emphasis on
education. It quotes Joseph Smith:
"receive truth let it come from where it may."
This was going to be great. I
studied hard and loved it. I also thought that since the kids were older I
could be more honest with them about church history, scripture, and
doctrine. I shared articles like Lester
Bush's on the history of denying Blacks the PH, articles from a Phoenix
newspaper about the church's finances, some revisions to the Book of Mormon and
the Doctrine and Covenants (D&C), the fact that Brigham Young really did
teach the Adam-God theory, and that the Book of Abraham was not anything like a
direct translation from Egyptian papyrus. I shared things gently and tried to soften it by telling the students
that just because the prophets were human didn't mean that they weren't still
prophets. I used Old and New Testament
prophets and apostles as examples of leaders with flaws--just like modern LDS
leaders I told them. I tried to convince
myself that that was true. As the years
went by and the kids responded positively, I continued to expose them to
objective sources and information. When
teaching Presidents of the Church I tried to expose the kids to the idea that
prophets are only human rather than infallible beings. Rather than passing out "Fourteen Fundamentals
of In Following The Prophets," an address given at BYU, Feb. 26, 1980, where
Ezra Taft Benson claims that "The Prophet is Not Required
to Have Any Particular Earthly Training or Credentials to Speak on Any Subject
or Any Matter at Any Time,” I used President J. Reuben Clark's
famous talk entitled, "When Are the Writings or Sermons of Church Leaders
Entitled to the Claim of Scripture?" (Dialogue,
Vol.12, No.2, p.68) President Clark
frankly admitted that the authorities err. Sometimes it was received very well, sometimes not. I taught the kids that Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine is no more doctrine than
a collection of their own sermons and writings and private interpretations of
scripture. The students were receptive
but the seminary teachers I appointed and in-serviced in two stakes were
not. Most thought it was apostasy to
teach that church leaders could err and are human. I got in trouble for it. I dragged out President Clark's talk to show
that President Clark was on my side. I
was told not to use it anymore. "Don't
confuse them with facts,” seemed to be the message. "It will undermine their faith,” I was
told. I thought it would inform their
faith. What good does it do to build
faith in an incorrect concept? Let's
exercise our faith that we can jump off tall buildings and fly and see how
constructive that is. You go first.
More Graduate Work
In 1992 I took some coursework
for my Ph.D. in Education Administration with an emphasis on Higher
Education. I wanted to pursue a
counseling degree and entering private practice but it didn't happen. I wasn't eager to spend the rest of my life
counseling people with serious problems 40 hours a week. Besides that the University would not accept
2000-plus hours of supervised clinical work I had already completed. They wanted me to repeat the hours. Instead I chose a higher education
administration major, thinking I could find a job at the
I was impressed with the
teachers who taught my graduate school classes. They were respectful of my Mormon profession, though they didn't agree
with the church's views. Once again, I
realized how narrow my church and profession was. I learned again that the best people in the
world aren't Mormons.
Learning about higher education was new to me. I was not familiar with significant theories
and practices of administration and management. The structure of institutions of higher education was unfamiliar too. I knew nothing about the appropriations
process and state funding of higher education. But I was eager to learn. I also
wanted to meet with as many UI administrators as possible to build a network of
people to help me find a job.
I tried to develop sharper critical
thinking skills. I took a course in
critical thinking from my major professor. I enjoyed looking at a problem from all points of view instead of
harboring biased feelings and defending a point of view in spite of the
evidence. That got me in a little
trouble with a CES colleague. M and I
attended the critical thinking class together one summer. One exercise involved presenting persuasive
arguments for both sides of an issue. During one of those exercises I was asked to defend homosexuality or abortion
and be as persuasive as I could. I did
my best. After class, M took me to task
for throwing my principles out the window. I told him that my principles were still intact. All I had done was practice some critical
thinking skills. It occurred to me that
he represented the typical church leader and CES colleague. They were afraid or unwilling to participate
in exercises which might expose them to other points of view. They preferred to remain convinced that they
could not be wrong, or could not be taught anything new. My counseling experience had placed me in
contact with Mormon gay men. After
working with them I refused to believe church leaders who insisted that they
were sinners and condemned before God. I
didn't want to become a narrow minded bigot.
During one CES region faculty
meeting I remember telling the teachers that I didn't think it was wise to put
all R-rated movies under one umbrella--bad! I told them that I had seen some that were thoughtful and
enriching. I insisted that we ought to
ask our students to think for themselves and help them develop parameters for
making decisions that were consistent with their values. I was assailed and accused of being disloyal
to the prophet. I defended myself by
saying that I was not defending material that was gratuitously sexual or
violent. I was defending violence like
that in Saving Private Ryan (although
I don't think I used that movie as an example--I can't remember). It was necessary to portray the evil and the
good of a World War and it was impossible to do that unless an image of the
brutality was shown. They violently
disagreed, and asked me how I could ever justify telling a kid that it was okay
to see nudity. I presume that they
thought they could argue from a nudity point of view more easily than a
violence point of view. I told them that
nudity is a matter of context. I asked
them to consider the LDS doctors who not only see nude men and women but they
feel for lumps in the women's breasts and closely examine their pubic regions
for problems. I told them that my wife
was an RN and she routinely had to check and handle men and women's sexual
organs when working at the hospital. Nudity is a matter of context I repeated. If it is intended to merely gratify some
sensual desire it is probably gratuitous. If nudity served some valid, higher purpose, it wasn't sinful as far as
I could tell. They were totally
unconvinced and thought of me as some kind of pervert. In defense of my colleague at the
I missed some CES meetings because
of graduate school. I got in quite a lot
of trouble for it. One resentful Area
Director actually yelled at me on the phone on more than one occasion because I
was going to miss a meeting. He called
I was friendly to my CES colleagues but I felt
different. I didn't really feel like
part of the group. No one read the
things I did. With one exception they
didn't follow sports or watch much TV as I liked to do. They were much more loyal to the church than
me. When I wasn't at a meeting I was told
I was missed the next time they saw me, but it was done in a way to make me feel
guilty, rather than express genuine care. When I did attend, I was teased about
my tie, my coat, my shirt or missing meetings--"Oh you decided to come this time
huh?" I couldn't really express my opinions because
I was thought to be too radical. One CES
wife told me that she thought I was a bad influence on her husband and didn't
want him hanging around me. When I did
express opinions I had to temper them to the point that I didn't really believe
what I was saying. I was acting
loyal. I withdrew quite a bit. Teresa hated going to Mid-Year Conventions so
badly that she did not go sometimes and I was a bachelor. Anyway, I got in quite a bit of trouble for
not going to meetings. A couple of
grizzled CES veterans were just as cynical about meetings as I was. But they were more loyal in other areas. I learned that meetings are more important
than being effective and doing your job well.
I grew to dislike most church-sponsored
meetings more as time went on. I dreaded
Sunday meetings--all 3 hours--isn't that just too much time? I didn't care for stake conference meetings
either--especially the Saturday afternoon and evening ones. I thought they were a waste of time. No great community projects that made
people's lives better came out of those meetings? I cannot believe that all those meetings made
much of a difference. But I was always
questioned if I didn't go. The church is
intramural and closed. Meetings are a way
of keeping members attached and busy doing church-sponsored things. Besides, the majority of meetings consist of
repeating worn out clichés designed to build your faith. There is no intellectual stimulation, except
in rare instances. The preferred material
harps on the same dumbed-down slogans and clichés over and over, "obey to your
leaders."
At one CES meeting participants were
divided into small groups. We were
directed to discuss some general conference talks and learn deep insights from
"the brethren” and Shari Dew. For 45
minutes Teresa and I listened to our group members (a group of 5 couples) talk
about how worldly their non-member neighbors were. They watched videos that were not always up
to the standards of the church. They
didn't keep the Sabbath holy. They did
all kinds of things that made these poor Mormons' feel so very uncomfortable
"living in the world." They didn't want
their children exposed to such sinful practices. Finally it was obvious that Teresa and I were
the only couple who hadn't contributed anything to the discussion. They coaxed us to say something. Teresa wasn't about to and I was afraid
to. If I told them what I was really
thinking I'd have been fired on the spot! After they prodded for some time I said in the kindest way I could, "I
guess I don't share the same experiences. My non-member relatives and friends are better examples of Christian
goodness than me. I try to learn from
them. I don't believe that because I'm a
Mormon I'm morally superior." I tried not
to be judgmental and pompous, yet I wanted to he honest. I wasn't trying to
"straighten them out." They began to back-pedal, "Well
when I spoke about my neighbor I didn't mean . . . . " I was trying to say that Mormons don't have a
corner on the market when it comes to spirituality or goodness, despite what
they tell each other on Sundays.
Graduation
I completed my coursework and took a 6-month sabbatical to
complete my dissertation. I had been
working on it for over a year and a half when I took the time off. I received a lot of encouragement and advice
from those who had taken terminal degrees. Most of it helped. One piece of
advice I kept getting from the majority of my CES colleagues was to "just get
the piece of paper so you can get respect from the educators across the
street!” That meant that I didn't have
to learn anything. I just had to get
through it. It also implied the naïve
assumption that at a research institution--a university--the only reason the
teachers and administrators there have a degree is so they can advance. That's just plain wrong. Most love research and teaching. Finally, it gave away the fact that CES professionals
by and large rarely use the excellent knowledge and resources they receive from
an intense focus on some area of academic interest, at great cost to the
church. I never considered getting the
piece of paper as the only desirable product of my education. I wanted to enjoy the process as well. I wanted to learn all I could to become more
competent and grow as a person. I had
the added motivation of wanting to become the kind of professional that the
university would hire.
I graduated in May of 1997 and it
was exhilarating. I had achieved a goal
I never dreamed I could. I was a goof
off in high school and enjoyed all the sports and social opportunities. I don't know how many of my classmates know
I've achieved the milestone, but they will tease me mercilessly about my awful
handwriting, by bad grades, the million pranks, and the fact that I couldn't
stay in the lines when I colored in first grade (maybe every grade). I still can't, but I learned that it's
because I'm special and creative!
CES policy requires that after
receiving a terminal degree an employee owes them five years of employment or
they must pay back the money CES paid for the degree. That's a common policy. Since I wasn't getting into that much
trouble, I wondered if I might find a way to remain in and retire from
CES. After all a person can retire at
age 55 and I was 47 at the time. Could I
stand it for 8 more years? Teresa didn't
think I could do it.
I had written a dissertation on
recruitment to LDS Institutes of Religion. I studied the literature on recruitment practices in business and higher
education for my literature review. CES
lacked a coherent, research based recruitment program. I also found that most of the methods and
tools they used were not the most effective, based on the surveys of LDS students
at the
I guess it suggested that CES had a lot to learn but the
message didn't come from the general authorities. It came from some punk in
Called to be Bishop
In 1997 I got another strong
prompting--really clear--"you're going to be called to be a bishop." This sounds cynical but I knew that it would
help me avoid controversy. When CES guys
are called to be bishops or members of the stake presidency, they are treated
differently. They are accorded much more
respect. You're given instant
credibility and freedom that you would not possess otherwise because of the
position. Often times in CES meetings
instead of addressing a colleague as "Brother Davis” they are addressed as
"President Davis." It's a real status
symbol though many will deny it. Well, I
waited for the prompting to come true.
I was summoned to the office of the
stake president. I told my wife, "I'm
going to receive a call to be the bishop of the
I was fingering the piece of paper
with my prediction on it in my coat pocket. Rats! I was wrong again. I was speechless too. I asked him what he was referring to. He said that he thought I was inactive
because I wasn't in church all that much. I told him that my calling was to teach Gospel Doctrine and I shared the
call with 3 other teachers, so I only taught once a month. I told him that I took the opportunity, since
I had a light-weight calling to visit wards in our stake and the other stake
that I administered CES programs for. It
gave me a real good opportunity to meet with PH leaders on Sunday when they
actually have time set aside to discuss issues that are important. I told him that I also visited my parents in
I was assigned to be the stake
president's home teacher. I actually
enjoyed it. He was gruff but likable and
funny. I loved his wife who was funny
too. But they were definitely more
conservative than me. We had good
visits. I wasn't a 100% home teacher so
I wasn't a model in that area. Some
months it was impossible to visit them because of his schedule. That didn't bother me. He used to tease me about not coming every
month and I would counter that if he went inactive while serving as stake
president that was his problem; not mine. We always had a good laugh together.
I was called to be the bishop about
a year later. The same stake president
asked me if I thought I could refrain from so many CES visits to other
wards. I said, "Yes, I do it because it's
my choice and I like it." He handed
me a letter signed by the Church President (or the signature machine) calling
me to be a bishop. I was happy!
I loved being a bishop. I was called to serve a married student
ward. It was a pretty good sized ward
and I was called just before the students left for summer vacation. Most of them got a good look at me and then
left town.
I came to the position knowing
exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to
focus on the grace and mercy of Christ as the Bible teaches it. I wanted to be quiet about Joseph Smith and
exalting him as the premiere member of the human race. I wanted those called to teach classes to
encourage discussion and set an atmosphere that is receptive to questions and
opinions without criticism. I wanted to
skip meetings where possible. I wanted
to love the members and put everyone on notice that no one in the ward will be
coerced by guilt. I wanted to allow
members to quit church jobs if they weren't happy serving or turn them down if
they didn't want to accept them. I
wanted to announce publicly and frequently that I was no more inspired than
they were. If I gave them counsel it was
from Ken Clark based on his limited experience and knowledge. They should be as ready to leave it as take
it. I wanted to visit them in their
homes as often as I could and eat their cookies and enjoy their kids. I wanted to model PH administrative methods
for the young men and women in leadership, so they would learn that guilt and
shame are not good administration tools but a good sense of humor is. Finally, I wanted to emphasize that those in
other communities of faith were often better examples of Christ-like living
than we Mormons were--we should learn as much as we can from them and humbly
thank them rather than assume that Mormons are superior.
The effect on the members was
wonderful. I wouldn't change a
thing. I didn't kill myself and put my
family last on the list. All my kids
were grown and out of the house. My wife
took a job working at an Assisted Living Facility in
During sacrament meetings about once
a month I asked people to come up and create a "Spontaneous Ward Choir." We didn't guilt people into joining the choir
if they were too busy or just wanted to be home with their families.
I skipped meetings whenever I
could. We held PEC, Welfare and other
meetings of that kind via e-mail on Wednesday nights when the ward leaders
reported their activities. I asked them
after "discussing” things with them if they thought we had enough other business
to hold PEC. Most often they said "no”
and I agreed.
We focused the sacrament meetings on
Christ and the effect His life, example and atonement has had on us. I took time to instruct them on the concept
of grace--we really are saved by grace!
I cancelled all the meetings after
sacrament meeting several times a year so we could enjoy time at home with our
families.
I got called to task by a ward
member now and again for not emphasizing the life and service of Joseph
Smith. I always smiled and responded
with, "I prefer to emphasize the Savior and his mission."
Two of my sons attended my
ward. What a blessing.
I injected humor into our meetings
though I didn't want to appear goofy. I
wanted the members to know that if we possess the good news then we can be "of
good cheer."
I was released after 3 years. I was not aware that the student stake
president harbored a lot of animosity toward me for my style of
administration--particularly the practice of canceling meetings wherever
possible.
The Beginning of the End
I was released in May 2001. I had not met or seen the stake president for
over 8 months. I contacted his second
counselor, my CES colleague at the Institute; because that was the only way I
could get information about my release. I tried to prepare the ward so whoever was following me as bishop could
step into a smooth running operation. I
didn't know that the stake president was purposely avoiding me because he
disliked me. In fairness to him I should
mention however that he had a terrible bout with singles and missed a lot of
meetings trying to recover. It took
months before he was on his feet.
After I was released I felt
good. I didn't know that trouble was
brewing. I got a big shock when my CES
Area Director (AD) from
I didn't get any help, support or
sympathy from my AD. He wasn't about to
question a PH leader in my behalf. I
questioned my AD about it. After
recovering from shock, I asked him what justification the stake president had
for claiming that I was unworthy to work for CES? Wasn't ecclesiastical administrative style
unrelated to CES? My administrative
style as a bishop was not a condition of employment. That was something CES administrators drummed
into our heads. Besides, if the stake president
had a problem with me why hadn't he talked to me about it instead of harboring
it like a festering sore? Wasn't he
supposed to be the premiere example of Christian conduct? I saw this behavior as petty and mean
spirited. That didn't help my job security
because the AD wouldn't go to the mat for me. The last thing a CES employee wants is a stake president on the hunt for
his job. It didn't matter how illogical,
how untrue, or how invalid his criticism were, I was in the cross-hairs and my
AD wasn't going to help me. I was in
trouble! My AD told me so. He told me to get the stake president on my
side. I was on probation until it
happened. I thought the stake president
would call me in and try to work it out. It never happened.
I'm in the Crosshairs
Even though my Area Director (AD)
could not muster the moral courage to support me he recognized that I had a lot
of success as a teacher. He appointed me
Region Faculty Chair, responsible for planning and conducting in-service
meetings for CES full-time faculty in the region. I sat on the Area Training Council, the group
responsible for planning the training meetings for the Area (
He called a meeting with me about
something a colleague had complained about. I had written an email to those in my region giving information about a
CES meeting where participants would share their feelings about President
Hinckley's book, Standing for Something. I added a silly note because I thought it was
funny. Sometimes I poked fun at the
seriousness with which members regard anything written by the church
leaders--elevating it to the level of sacred text. I said in the email that I had heard that
President Hinckley's less active brother had also written a book called, Sitting for Nothing. Most of the guys got a kick out of it and
told me so. I certainly didn't mean to
offend anyone. My AD gravely informed me
that I had hurt someone's feelings. I
laughed because it was so much like a sixth grade level issue. He got upset because I wasn't taking the
matter more seriously. I asked him how I
could when it was so juvenile to tattle on me. If someone had a problem with a sophomoric and admittedly silly remark
by me, let them come to me and tell me. "I'll apologize and be done with it. Why make it a major issue?" was my response.
The AD surprised me and replied, "Well, that brings me to
another serious matter." My colleague
was too afraid to confront me with the issue because I intimidated him the AD
reported. I told the AD that if the guy
was about my age (1) he should be ashamed for acting so childish and helpless,
(2) be willing to admit that it was juvenile to play the role of the victim as
an excuse not to do the right thing and talk to me, and (3) it was silly to
tattle to the AD. Besides I added, "R, as
the AD you're adding fuel to the fire by allowing the guy to get away with this
nonsense." I tried to make the
point that scripture says to talk to me directly (D&C 42:88) if there was a
problem. I thought I'd better find a job
or I was going to get fired or go crazy. My observation is that when it is convenient to use scripture to whip
the members into shape, leaders never hesitate to use it to create guilt. When leaders are violating scriptural
commandments, they simply ignore them.
Believe it or not, R brought that issue up at least two more
times in the next year. He wouldn't let
go of it. Once was during a meeting with
my wife. I was stunned when he brought
it up again. I asked, "When are you going
to let that issue go?" My wife questioned
him and asked why he continued to bring up such silly issues. He began to quake
and shake and said, "I don't know what to say Teresa." More of
that discussion later.
I got into trouble again when a member of my region faculty
called R to report that I had said in an in service meeting that I was sure
that my non-member relatives were all going to be together as families in
heaven. The tattler hadn't confronted me
in the meeting. But on the phone, he and
my AD decided that I had committed the unpardonable sin. I had disregarded the need for sacred temple ordinances. Everyone knows that if non-members don't
accept the opportunity to join the church and get married in the temple, they
will be consigned to a lesser kingdom, without the reward of living with their
families. I told him that I thought God
would judge us by the content of our hearts. He thought I was a radical.
I had to endure another big inquisition--a watershed
event--the kangaroo court to trump them all. It was in February of 2002. My
colleague at the
The next thing I knew I was on the phone with the other
stake president in town. He said that we
needed to sit down and talk with the Seattle CES AD, President M and himself
(Pres. D was the one who later told me to bring in my paycheck stubs so he
could calculate my tithing). I told him
that I'd be happy to visit. They were
all very concerned about some things I had written in my email as well as some
other "serious” problems which they would not reveal before the meeting. At the time I was serving on the High Council
under Pres. D and we were getting along famously, even though he admitted that
he didn't like me at all before he got to know me. I never felt like I could fully trust him
even when he liked me. I was right as it
turned out. He loved the spotlight and
had a way of speaking in a folksy and humble way that always managed to make him
the "star." I thought he tried a
little too hard to be admired. It also
bothered me that he betrayed confidences. In his talks when he would get
carried away (by the Spirit of God) he had a habit of telling confidential
stories about the personal lives of individuals in our stake boundaries. I did counseling for free as a gesture of
good will and I knew who some of the people were he was talking about and so did
their friends. It was terribly embarrassing
for them when they heard about it. I
lost some respect for him because of that. I thought it indicated an insatiable desire to be admired, at the
expense of members' privacy.
He is also careless with the truth. He promised me that he would not let
President M go on a tirade again about my missing some interviews with him when
I served as bishop.
We all sat down for the inquisition in February of
2002. Half of me was sick with
worry. Half of me was comfortable
because President D had promised me that he would not allow President M rail on
me about missing PPIs--for the umpteenth time. It was after that one that I told myself and my wife that I would never
sit through another one of those outrageous, inquisitions again.
Of course the first item was the email message. I wrote it because some returned missionaries
in a class chastised young women for bearing their testimonies using, "I believe.
. . .", instead of "I know." In our discussion and in the email message I
defended the girls and told them that it was fine and probably more
honest. I told them that I did it and
intended to do it more because it made me feel more comfortable than declaring,
"I know the church is the only true church on earth!” I showed them scripture where Jesus exhorted
his disciples to "Be not afraid, only believe (Mark
I've mentioned several times before that loyalty is more
important than honesty. The logical
extension of that idea is that conformity is how most leaders define spiritual
unity. You must give up your own ideas
or keep them quiet. You must walk
lockstep with the things leaders dictate. They call it obedience. It
resembles coerced conformity.
It didn't matter that I had written a substantive and valid
message about the concept of belief and faith. It didn't matter that all my examples from scripture were
verifiable. President M wanted his pound
of flesh. He said I had undermined the
faith of the students. President D and R
(CES AD) all solemnly agreed. I couldn't
have won that argument if Jesus had appeared and said, "I'm on Ken's side." I meekly apologized and admitted
that I must have not put enough thought into my email message. I apologized for offending any students. I informed them however, that not a single
student had expressed any dissatisfaction with the message. I suggested that they tell me who exactly was
offended so I could personally apologize. They couldn't or wouldn't identify any. In fact they couldn't name a single student who was offended because
none had contacted them. I asked them if
they wanted me to apologize to the entire class and explain my sin and ask for
their forgiveness. They didn't think I
should do that either. I wondered if I
was just being called in for a good dressing down to make President M happy and
feel good about himself. It was obvious
he didn't want me walking out of the meeting still gainfully employed with CES. Why is it wrong to encourage students to be
honest about their level of belief? To
this day, my logic and message sound reasonable to me.
By the way, I did go back to my class and apologize for the
email. They had no idea what I was
talking about. They wondered what was
going on and asked me about it. I told
them that I had gotten into trouble over it. They were truly bewildered and a protective of me. They wanted to know if I wanted them to go
talk to the stake president. I asked
them not to.
The next cardinal offense: Pres. M wanted to know if it was true that I had once told a woman
(about my age) who attended Institute, "you have a right to your private
political opinions, I have a right to mine and Gordon B. Hinckley has a right
to his. We are not required to agree." Yes I had. We regularly read messages from the First Presidency reminding the
members that Mormons are free to hold their own political opinions without any
coercion from the leaders of the church (unless leaders declare it a moral
issue--then they tell you exactly how you must vote). Members are encouraged to exercise their
views by voting at the polls I reminded them. They agreed and seemed stumped for a second until President M added that
he thought that the way I had said it was the
problem. This was a new tactic. I defended myself adding that the woman had
displayed more than a little "attitude” toward me during our discussions, and
in the interest of simply agreeing to disagree, I turned around in the
hallway--she was following close behind and wouldn't drop the issue--and I did in
fact cut the discussion short after begging her to drop it several times. He did not want to concede the point. He was seething. Besides she was a close friend of his
wife. He probably promised to take care
of me and be a hero to her.
The third cardinal sin I had committed was that when asked by
a young woman in class, "Brother Clark, have you ever seen an R-rated movie?" I answered, "Yes." She asked me how I could ever do that since
the prophet had advised members against seeing R-rated movies. I explained that despite what the prophet
says, members are not robots and general rules rarely apply to all specific
situations. They still have to make
informed decisions. It's wise to
establish some criteria for making decisions like that. I explained that I never saw R-rated movies
that displayed gratuitous sex or violence. I made the decision to attend ones that I thought had a noble and
uplifting message such as Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List. Somehow word got back to the president that I
had undermined the prophet's counsel.
All present expressed their horror and righteous indignation
that I would ever go to an R-rated movie and then compound the sin by admitting
it and undermining the faith of the students. I asked them if they were advising me to lie. They said they there were
ways to answer the question without admitting the error. And they stressed again, I should have never
gone to an R-rated movie in the first place. I pressed them again and asked if they were telling me to deceive the
students. They never did tell me not to
lie to the students.
R, the CES AD sat silently all the while, piously nodding in
agreement every time Presidents D and M scored a hit. Ironically R and I had attended an R-rated
movie together in
Another twist is that President M, the pious stake president
who was going for my jugular, had a reputation for being the one of the most
foul-mouthed baseball coaches ever to work with the young 15 year-olds in
Moscow! Those poor kids endured some of
the worst crude and vulgar language one can imagine. A bishop whose boy played on the team told
me.
I stopped trying to explain to them that an R-rated movie
isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world. I didn't go into a lot of detail except to say that I would have invited
Jesus and President Hinckley to watch the movies with me. I felt good about my choices. I thought university students ought to think
about setting some standards they feel comfortable with to guide their choices
instead of blindly refusing to see any R-rated movies at all. Besides, most of the institute students
attended R-rated movies regularly, and not necessarily because they were
carefully thought out choices. I was
trying to give them some criteria to use. Wasn't that better than pretending that they never attended them?
I began to apologize when I saw I wasn't going to persuade
them that I might have a valid argument. I needed to walk out of there with a job. President M misjudged me. I guess he thought I would throw chairs or
something. He didn't expect the
apologizing. My guilt had already been
established before I walked into the room. They didn't want to confuse the issue with facts.
They hadn't pinned anything on me at least to the degree
that President M had wanted. So they
began to change the reason we met. They
decided that admittedly, none of those offenses was all that serious, but
collectively they "revealed a pattern of disturbing behavior." To make the case, President D decided to
bolster their argument by using my administrative style as a bishop--the exact
material he had promised solemnly he would not allow President M to bring into
the conversation. That rat fed me to the
lions. It was lies and betrayal.
I hadn't attended enough Personal Priesthood Interviews
(PPIs) to satisfy President M. Same old
song; here we go again. I defended
myself and he became so angry that President D gently said something to both of
us that was obviously pointed at M. I
reminded M that he had cancelled many PPIs because of his bout with shingles.
He vehemently denied it though it was true. He was being less than honest to make win the point.
President M asked me if it was true that while serving as a
bishop I had wadded up and thrown away a letter from the First Presidency
commanding bishops to hold 3 hours worth of meetings on the Sunday closest to
Christmas Day. I had because I didn't
intend to keep my ward for 3 hours of meetings. I had already promised my ward that we would go to sacrament meeting and
then be dismissed to go home and spend the holiday time with our families
instead of sitting in church meetings. The 3 amigos were filled with resentment at my irreverence for the
prophets' orders. They inflated
themselves with renewed indignation. Now
they were getting somewhere.
President D told me that I was not orthodox and he didn't
see any way that he would ever let his daughter attend my classes if she
attended Institute. I was
dangerous. I couldn't be trusted. All I could do was sit and listen. How do you defend yourself and convince them
that you're wonderful?
R decided to get into the act. He asked me in front of the group why I had a
sign on my door "telling students you don't want to see them." I corrected him and told him that the sign on
my door "asked” students to please make an appointment to visit. I explained office hours to the group. They were all very displeased and ordered me
to get rid of the sign. "It tells kids
you don't want to talk to them." I
explained that I was the one at the institute who spent the vast majority of
time visiting with the kids, not my colleague, and that's why I need to post
office hours. I'm the one who dispensed
free professional counseling, and plenty of it. I'm the one who the single ward bishops referred their problem kids to. I'm the one that the bishops in the town
wards and the student married wards to referred their tough marriage cases
to. How could I possibly be accused of
turning students away? Again, the facts
weren't about to get in the way. They
had a duty--to humble me, and perhaps fire me.
After they all took turns pummeling me for no less than 3 hours,
we began to talk about my future. President M had to excuse himself and missed this part of the discussion
or I would probably have been fired that night. President D I think, was too afraid to confront President M, but being
fair minded enough to know that I had been railroaded somewhat, held the
discussion while he was away. It was
decided that needed to be moved. President D asked me what if CES wanted to move me to
I had to excuse myself to go present a lesson to the Relief
Society of my ward on healthy family relationships. I was supposed to go and act cheerful and
upbeat. I was beaten to a pulp. I had saved my job but I was definitely going
to be moved. I gave the lesson. I was supposed to meet Teresa and R for
dinner at a nice restaurant afterward. I
was so depressed. They had successfully
beaten me down, and I had no energy left.
Teresa and I had dinner with R. He didn't offer any concessions. He said that when a stake president and a CES
man lock horns, there is only one thing to do--move the CES man, no matter how
wrong or pig-headed the stake president is. Teresa appealed to him to explain that crazy rationale. R's reply was,
"Teresa I don't know what to tell you." And that's all he would
say. R told me that he and President M
would have more meetings to figure out what to do with me.
As it turned out, President D got hold of President M and
talked to him some more that same night. He tried to calm Jack down because he
was fuming. President D told me later
that it bothered him that President M was so intent on exacting some revenge on
me. President M was livid because I was
still employed I guess. President D told
him to try and reconcile and give me a chance.
There was talk about me being transferred. K, my colleague at
After the initial shock wore off and I had a day or two to
talk about the infamous inquisition with Teresa, we became angry and decided to
leave CES as soon as we could, even if it meant settling for a lot less
money. I told my colleagues as much and
President D too--after I began speaking to him again. He called a meeting a few weeks after the
inquisition and I told him that I couldn't believe that he had lied and
betrayed me. He admitted that he let
President M have a go at me. He wanted
to make up. I told him I wanted to be
released from the high council to look for a job. He quickly agreed, and two days later, they
sustained a "professional” from the area to take my place. The man had had an affair with a beautiful
woman where they worked a few years before so the rumor mill attested (no
church action was ever taken). No one
who worked there respected this "good Mormon” because of his flirtatious
behavior. Part of the reason was because
his wife was one of the most respected people in town. She has ethics, morals, and more character
than all the Mormons put together. But
she had quit the church years before and joined a
I received a phone call from R from CES headquarters in
We ended up leaving the convention early to get me to the
doctor. I had a sinus infection. I was never so happy to get infected. It felt much better than sitting in meetings
with a bunch of earnest and intensely sincere guys and their wives who (1)
"know that this is the only true church on the face of the earth; and, (2) know
that the Lord will never let his prophet lead us astray." There's always a testimony meeting on the
last day of convention. It's so everyone
can stand and reassure everyone else that they love CES, the Church, President
Hinckley, and the rest of the brethren, "who treat us so well."
After a couple of weeks, R decided to tell me that we had to
meet. I told Teresa to come. He was a little hesitant when she showed
up. She asked him why he failed to
defend me instead of contributing to the feeding frenzy at the last
inquisition. Something odd and
remarkable happened. He began to tremble
and shake uncontrollably. He answered, "I don't know." His voice was
quivering. She asked him why 27 years of exemplary teaching meant nothing to him
and the stake presidents who tried to take my job. He said, "I don't know what
to tell you Teresa." He kept
quaking--every inch of him--and he was a big guy--six-feet-four and 250 pounds
at that time. Teresa asked again, "R, what are we supposed to do?" He was still shaking and gave
his repetitious reply again, "I don't know Teresa. I don't know what to say."
Teresa asked him what the real complaints against me were, "Because those other complaints
were ridiculous." His answer again was,
"I don't know what to tell you Teresa. I thought he was going to cry under the
strain.
He was still trembling and from our vantage point could not
make it stop. I wanted to know why he
didn't admit that he had gone to see an R-rated movie with me a few years ago,
instead of lecturing me about morality and acting innocent during the last
inquisition. He said he forgot. I told him I was absolutely unimpressed with
his administrative ability because he sat there and let them cover all the old
ground about my not attending enough meetings to suit President M. "Why didn't you put a stop to that?" He
answered, "What was I supposed to say Ken?" "You tell them that we've been
over all that and it doesn't have anything to do with Ken's employment! That's your job R!” There was no response from him.
He brought up some other issues that we had covered long
ago--all old that supposedly had been dealt with such as the one about my joking
around about the inactive brother of President Hinckley writing Sitting for
Nothing. I was really upset at him
by now. I couldn't believe that he
dredged that up again. I didn't care if I got fired, I was angry.
The meeting ended with Teresa and I looking at each other
wondering (1) how does this guy climb to the top of his profession as an
administrator; (2) was he merely a lackey for the stake presidents to control
like some puppet; (3) why would it have been so hard for him to be honest and
more assertive with the stake presidents? (4) Why in the world would he tremble and quake uncontrollably when he
was the one with all the power and authority in the room?
He promised to do all he could to relate "my side of the
story” to
Teresa and I were desperate to get out of CES! The church is under no obligation to provide
a fair hearing, due process, or any other guarantees that workers for a state,
federal or municipal entity are entitled. They can fire you on a whim. It
says so on every letter of appointment--their preferred term for contract. In the last paragraph of my last contract
dated
Because my colleague T, at the Pullman Institute felt burned
out he wanted to switch positions with me. He got his wish. I was appointed
as the Director of the Pullman Institute. His enrollment has been steadily declining over the past couple of
years. He and others thought the
Institute needed some fresh blood. Ironically CES and the PH leaders wanted me to get the enrollment back
up to where it needed to be. They knew I
could in short order.
I began moving my things from the
As packed my 96 boxes at my
That is merely the first problem of
dozens and dozens that one comes across when studying church history, Pearl of
Great Price, or the Doctrine and Covenants. Add to that the translation of the Book of Mormon problems (evidence
indicates he didn't translate anything, but merely used his imagination and
sources available to him). It appears he
made up stories about the restoration of the priesthood--he never mentioned
anything about a miraculous visitation from angels to restore the PH until
1834-35. His revelations when first
prepared for publication in the Book of Commandments were later revised and
expanded making many events appear more miraculous than first explained. Members are unaware of the duplicitous nature
of the history and doctrine of the church. To me it constituted false advertising and propaganda instead of church
history.
I was resigned to remain in the
church and lay low until I could find a job. I had made up my mind that if I could find something before the school
year ended, I would resign immediately. I just couldn't find anything. I
had applied for jobs I felt confident about but never received a request for an
interview. One of the funniest was when
I applied for the night supervisor's position at the University of Idaho
Student Recreation Center. The ad said
that they wanted someone with administrative experience, a Bachelor's degree,
and a list of other qualifications that I possessed 10 times over. I never even got an interview. Yet I let them know that I would be delighted
with the pittance they offered as salary. The one interview I did get was for a 5th grade teaching
position in my hometown of
Mormon students from
After spending weeks getting the
institute's web site up to date, the course schedules out, and lots of other
duties, not to mention the sheer load of unpacking, I was ready to accept my
fate. I wrestled with my
conscience. I was so conflicted. I didn't believe a thing I was going to teach
the next two semesters, yet I was doing it for the money--I was too chicken to
simply quit and take my chances.
I continued to search for jobs but
it wasn't going anywhere. I had visited
with the president of Lewis-Clark State College, who I had known when she
served as an Assistant Dean and later Associate Provost at the
My 27 years working for the church was an obstacle for most
employers. They simply didn't believe
that I had knowledge and experience that would transfer to a higher education
setting. I thought they were wrong but
that didn't matter. While the church
hadn't given me anything in the way of good, solid philosophy, theory and
practice of administration in higher education, my academic coursework had and
so had my teaching at the
I was getting depressed and I was
scared. I didn't know what to do. I pictured going to boring church
meetings. Was I going to keep paying
tithing (taxes) so I could keep my job? I was so worried because I just couldn't see the stake presidents
leaving me alone for another year. I
felt like a carcass that the buzzards were circling.
That's about the time that Bishop L
called us in for the interview that we flunked for not paying tithing by the
month, reading scriptures too much in church, and not attending our own ward
enough. Of course the stake president
pushed me over the edge when he said to bring in my paycheck stubs so he could
calculate how much tithing I should pay, and let them check up on meeting
attendance every time I left town to visit out of town relatives.
A few days after I quit I contacted
both my friends again by email--the president of LCSC and the VP of Student
Affairs at UofI. I told them that I had
resigned because I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't have a job and needed some advice. Should I agree to do something like
janitorial work, take classes; do an internship, or what? I was at the Pullman Institute when I emailed
them. I was packing all my boxes
again. After sending the email and
before heading for home, I called my home and checked my messages. I had a message on the machine from the
president of LCSC. She said she might
have something for me. I couldn't
believe it.
I drove home and called her. She said that their Director of Grants and
Contracts was taking a leave of absence. The President and Provost were discussing how they would replace
her. She came from that meeting to her
office and read my email. She phoned me
and left a message on my machine. We
talked about the job, but she didn't want to tell me very much before she did
some checking with other senior administration. She had meetings in
Hope is the mother of peace. I had some misgivings though. I didn't know a thing about grant
administration at a college or university. While I waited for a week to hear some news from the President, I
checked some websites to learn what I could about writing grants. She called back about a week later. I was babysitting my grandson Jake. We were shooting baskets outside, and I got a
phone call. The president told me that
if I wanted the job of Interim Director of Grants and Contracts it was
mine. I would begin sometime in
September on a part-time basis, and then begin full-time duties on November 1st. Neither of us was sure I would like it or
could learn it with such a steep learning curve. It wasn't just a matter of learning to write
grants. It was the entire process of
grant administration--both pre and post award duties--grant writing was only one
small piece of the job. I would take a
$35,000 a year salary cut. That was just
fine with me. Both the president and I
were happy. She is a caring person, who
is spiritual, approachable, and extremely intelligent. She wanted to help me. I'll always be grateful.
She invited me to her investiture as
president of LCSC in August, and asked me to attend an all-campus meeting where
I was introduced to the faculty and staff of LCSC. I felt uncomfortable because I didn't know
anyone and for the first time in 27 years I wasn't going to teach for CES which
was easy and familiar to me. But I was
also happy and optimistic. I kept
telling myself that I had written an excellent dissertation. If I did that I could do this.
I completed a year at LCSC as the
Interim Director and we brought in a record amount of external funds. The search process for a permanent Director
of Grants and Contracts resulted in my being selected as the permanent Director
in August 2003. My salary rose
considerably, and none of it will go to Mormon taxes. My net income is greater than it was when I
left CES as a result of the permanent position. Teresa and I have enjoyed this last year more than any since we were married. We feel so much joy and peace. We are not being ordered to wear temple
garments. not suffering awful dread every
time Sunday rolls around because of the requirement to go to hours of meetings;
not being assigned to spend evenings out every month home teaching and visiting
teaching; not being fed a steady diet of "the leaders of the church will never
lead the church astray--so don't question anything, just be submissive and
obedient."
In time we will have our names
removed from the records of the church. I resent it that Mormon bishops and other ward leaders talk about us in
their PEC, Welfare, and Ward Correlation Council meetings. My years of experience tell me how it
works. We've given ourselves a little
time to think about it because we don't want to injure the feelings of one
grown son who is still active. Our other
4 children left the church before we did. They tease us about not taking their advice sooner.
That's our story.
Are we still friends with the members? I don't know. We're like lepers as far as the Mormon community is concerned. If they bump into us at the store there is
awkward smiling and general conversation about the weather. Once in a while, one of the non-judgmental
ones talks to us just like old times and we enjoy the visit.
Will we ever go back to church? Never.
Are we Christians today? Yes, but we are not members of any organized denomination.
Some curious things to us are:
Mormons assume that if you leave the church you can't be
happy. Nothing could be further from the
truth. We are happier than ever because
they no longer have a grip on us.
Mormons assume that if you leave the church that your
spiritual life will suffer. We feel
closer to God than ever before, yet I am free to combine reason with my faith,
think critically, and ask hard questions. That produced uncomfortable tension in the church.
Mormons assume that you need the church to prod you to be
good and do good for others. We feel
more like reaching out to others now because we're not coerced.
Mormons assume that your family life is better in the
church. We are closer as a family now
because there is less judging based on narrow church beliefs. Instead of measuring everyone in the family
against what the church says is right and wrong, we simply love each other and
let them explore their own spirituality. We know that God loves us and his grace is sufficient. We don't assume that our children who haven't
served missions and married in the temple are lost. It makes for a much better relationship.
Mormons assume that Christians believe in a kind of cheap
grace that gives you license to sin, while claiming to be saved. That's nonsense. Most Christians believe that they are saved
by the grace of God because of Christ's death and blood shed on the cross. They believe that grace entices one to be
good. Mormons try to earn grace by
living well enough to qualify for it. That's an oxy-moron. Grace, by
definition is a free gift and can't be earned nor can you qualify for it.
Mormons deny that Christ paid for their sins on the cross
and claim that He did it in
On occasion a former student (I
still write to one from a class in 1972) or member of my ward when I was bishop
remarks, "You inspired me to believe. I
still remember the things you taught and did. You had such a good influence on me. How could you have a testimony one day and deny it later? What happened to your testimony?" I think this is the answer. When I said, "The Church is true!” I believed
it. As I gave myself permission to
investigate my testimony and beliefs I discovered that I had been duped or at least
not given the whole story. I explored to
learn for myself if it was true. I can
not find evidence to support the claims of Mormonism. I searched and wanted to find supporting
evidence. It's just not there. The church left me. What you and I referred to as my "testimony”
was/is the force of my personality, my enthusiasm, and my teaching and
interaction style. I brought that with
me into Mormonism and I took it out with me. It's not a function of the
Spirit. It's a function of who I am and
how I relate to people. You're confusing
those personality and character traits with a metaphysical (things outside the
physical world) experience. Being a
gifted and inspirational teacher isn't a sign that one is inspired or has
received revelations from God. Joseph
Smith and Paul Dunn proved that.
Others have said to me,
"Most of your
experiences aren't directly connected with the official doctrines of the
church. They only represent aspects of
the social gospel where certainly one can point out flaws in leaders here and
there. That doesn't make the whole
church bad. Those were just a few bad
apples”
Yes it does describe the whole church rather than a few bad
apples. Because the leaders are not
accountable to anyone for treating me and others as they did. In fact, they may have been praised by their
superiors for handling my case. Their
practices and procedures indicate that something is very wrong with their flawed
philosophy which drives those abominable practices. That makes it a sick system
or organization. It presumes that treating people like garbage and spitting them
out is a good thing, if they think out loud, ask questions, or aren't cheering
loudly or wildly enough to suit them, and in my case, not paying enough to the
corporation of the president. They behave in a vicious and unchristian way while
claiming to be the only true representatives of Christ. And please don't
trivialize my experiences by claiming abuse by "only a few bad apples." The church doesn't view them as bad apples. They are revered as the best in
I hope some can benefit from this
account. It is true. But I don't want to mislead you into thinking
that I hold myself up as one who is without faults. I have plenty of them. I also don't want you to think I dislike the
hundreds of members whom I have met and known well over 33 years in the church. On the whole they are as nice as anyone
else--no better, but no worse. They are
like the rest of us, including me--trying to be mostly good, while working on
our flaws. By writing this I'm not
declaring war on the church. I wanted to
share my experience. It's therapy for
both of us I hope.
Ken Clark