President Nelson Will Now Speak [Brace Yourselves]

This is where we're at. Or where we will be when January 2019 rolls around.

Very interestingly couched this announcement was, amid the message of "OK, you've got more time on the Sabbath Day. Now look at how you're observing the Sabbath and make better use of the time you've got. Remember, this is NOT a Sunday-only religion."

That Double-Walled Thought

I was on vacation/blog sabbatical when the news dropped that the LDS Church would continue as a chartering organization in the Boy Scouts of America even with the BSA’s decision to end its ban on homosexual leaders.

The news didn’t surprise me, as the church has a long history as a BSA sponsor, did not object to the BSA allowing gay scouts, and allows for celibate homosexuals to hold church callings and have temple recommends. 

Also not surprising it eh parsing the message is undergoing, particularly in light of a recent poll that shows the majority of active LDS members would like to see the church out of the BSA.

The most significant parsing comes after reading this portion of the church’s announcement:

At this time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will go forward as a chartering organization of BSA, and as in the past, will appoint Scout leaders and volunteers who uphold and exemplify Church doctrine, values, and standards.

In fact, the parsing is on the first three words: “At this time.” That gives the Scouting haters (and there are some in the church) breathing space to say the church could, in the future, dump Scouting in favor of something else. Which indeed it could.

What needs more parsing, in my view, is the final paragraph of the statement:

With equal concern for the substantial number of youth who live outside the United States and Canada, the Church will continue to evaluate and refine program options that better meet its global needs.

What does evaluate and refine mean? What program options would be evaluated and refined? The Duty to God program comes to mind. I find it hard to believe the church would create a mirror of Scouting out of whole cloth when a program like Duty to God could be adapted to meet the temporal needs of boys/youth in the church, as well as those spiritual needs. This inward-turning focus could augment the church’s stance that its me3mvbers are a “peculiar people,” a badge many in the church would wear with honor.

What’s going to be most interesting is to see how member support for Scouting changes despite the First Presidency’s decision to go ahead with Scouting. There were some who grumbled – and cut off support to Friends of Scouting, a major fund-raising program – when gay scouts were allowed, and that is likely to increase significantly with gay leaders being allowed, even if chartered organizations are allowed to choose their own leaders based on their religious values. Those who fear homosexuals might think they’re insulated – if that’s the proper word – from them within an LDS unit, but once an LDS unit goes to scout camp or another BSA-sponsored activity, that illusion of insularity is gone.

That will either prompt an exodus from scouting on individual family bases – I can think of one family offhand that will probably leave scouting because of this decision (not in our unit, you local speculators) – or open up local councils to discrimination lawsuits if they sponsor “LDS-only” weeks at camp. And the lawsuits will come, just as soon as a unit with a mind to sue comes up against schedule conflicts that plant it at camp during an LDS-only week.

And Mormon-haters will likely exacerbate the problem – not being content with the BSA’s decision to end discrimination, but upping the anti-discrimination drum beat by going after chartering organizations that discriminate based on religious beliefs, perhaps through attempting to remove tax-exempt statuses or other legal/governmental means, thus showing that they don’t mind if state mixes with church as long as it’s the state that’s the victor – forgetting that the separation of church and state is a double-walled thought.

You HAVE to Ask Why

The Salt Lake Tribune is trumpeting a survey recently taken in Utah showing the majority of active members of the LDS Church polled favor the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints severing its 100-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America.

The survey has a serious flaw: It does not ask why.

Obviously, the 900-pound gorilla in the room is the BSA National Executive Council’s recent decision to allow chartered organizations to appoint gay leaders, ending the BSA’s ban on such leadership. Leaving that gorilla unaddressed in the survey offers a less nuanced look at LDS attitudes towards the BSA and the executive council’s decision, in my opinion.

But, like the poll takers, I offer no empirical proof. But I do have anecdotal evidence that offers other reasons why these active LDS members may want to sever the BSA/LDS relationship.

First, the expense. Scouting is an expensive program. In a few weeks our unit will have a court of honor, for which we’ll spend more than $400 on awards. And that doesn’t even mention the money parents have to drop on Scout shirts and other uniform parts, the budget for the troop ($1,200, provided by our chartering organization) and the $120 each boy had to cough up for scout camp this summer.

Second, the time. Members of the LDS Church already spend three hours a week at church. Add to that the time commitment required by scouting – Tuesday night activities would, of course, continue without Scouting, but you have to factor in campouts, training, and other commitments – and there’s a lot of time that goes into it.

Third, the work. As Scoutmaster, I rely a lot on parents to help with merit badge work. I have to. I have, on a good day, a dozen boys in my troop and about an hour a week to work with them. As they’re on a revolving door basis (competing with family events, sports teams, and other activities that take them away from Scouts on Tuesdays and when we camp out) I can’t guarantee all the boys will get the instruction for merit badges when I can offer it. Parents have to step up – and step up as they’re navigating homework coming in from the schools. Scouting takes second priority, if it gets a priority at all.

Obviously, the BSA’s leadership decision is weighing heavily on this survey. But to not ask why is to leave, I feel, too many questions unanswered.

Tribune reporter Peggy Fletcher Stack, however, does a good job answering one of the nuanced questions I’ve had on the matter (though I take what she writes with a grain of salt, simply because she offers no verification of its veracity:

Although the LDS Church has allowed — and does allow — openly gay Mormons to serve in church assignments, including the Boy Scouts, these members are deemed to be living the faith's standards. This means they are not acting on their same-sex attractions.

The BSA's new policy, however, makes no such distinction between "openly gay" and "sexually active gay leaders." So a gay Scout leader could have a partner or a same-sex spouse — and that troubles the Mormon brass.

While the BSA insists that religiously affiliated troops, including those sponsored by the LDS Church, could continue to ban gay leaders, many observers doubt such an exemption could be legally defended.

The part I have the most difficulty with, verification-wise, is the second paragraph cited here. I’m not aware of any official announcement form the church outlining their concerns with the BSA’s change in policy as clear cut as Stack offers here.

For what it’s worth, I hope the church continues with scouting. I’m pushing our oldest son right now to finish his Eagle Scout paperwork – he finished his project this weekend. If the church is going to bail on scouting, I’d like to see him get his Eagle before the bailing takes effect. We have talked as a couple about finding a community troop for our kids to join if the severing occurs. But whether or not that happens will depend quite a bit on what the church decides.

Conference on Twitter

Because I'm kind of a geek at heart, I kept tabs on this weekend's LDS General Conference on Twitter as we listened at home to conference on the radio. Yeah, it was kind of odd, listening in with two technologies -- one ancient, invented by Marconi and now one of the most ubiquitous and invisible ways of disseminating information known to man; the other invented by the US military and now one of the most ubiquitous and visible ways of disseminating information.

But it led to a much richer experience than I thought it might.

And not because of the stuff I tweeted, which pretty much resembled this:

What I found most interesting and most comforting is that for several hours this weekend, as I listened to conference, I was not only listening in with my family, but also with a large and varied community of Saints scattered around the world, but united in one odd little social media site on the World Wide Web. Superficially, I can say that conference brought to me more followers in one weekend than I've ever earned in that time period before. But more significantly, I got to read how the talks were impacting people outside of my own little circle, how they interpreted things, how they reacted to things, and how they responded to the humor, humility, and humanity displayed throughout the weekend.

We were united, in humility and humor, with each other as we heard the messages come from the prophet and other leaders. Just by searching on the hashtag #ldsconf, we could see how the messages were being received all over the place. Yes, there were intruders and interlopers, using the hashtag to try to provoke, but I didn't see anyone taking the bait. We successfully ignored the trolls, at least I hope, for the most part. And that's good news.

Ooh, A Ruckus

Rumor has it that Max Spatig, who is in a spat with the Madison County Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the discovery of hazardous chemicals on his Madison County property, is taking his message to the masses.

Or at least is trying to. Or threatening to. Nevertheless, local representatives of the LDS Church have a plan in place. Spatig, the rumor says, wants to target the open format of the LDS Church's Fast Sunday -- the first Sunday of the month in which, for the first hour of church, anyone in the congregation may bear their testimonies or otherwise hold forth at the microphone -- to preach against the evils of the MCSO and EPA. Instructions, the rumor says, for local church leaders
if this were to happen would be to immediately cancel church for the day and send everyone home.

Cheekily, I kinda hope this happens.

Weirdness is often a part of LDS Fast Sundays. I've heard it used to issue calls for repentance by folks willing to use names of church members they feel have sinned, by folks who want colognes and perfumes banned from church buildings, and other such ruckus-rousing behavior. Most of the time, Fast Sundays are good Experiences, with people sharing their love of Christ, their love of the prophets, their love for their fellow beings and such. Sometimes, however it's a ruckus. Mormons are, above anything else, intensely human human beings, with all the good and bad, ego and humility, that entails.

So if Spatig shows up and truncates our traditional three-hour church block, I won't complain. I am, in fact, sorely tempted to bring the video camera next Fast Sunday, just in case. In fact, I'd feel kind a bad for folks who have Sacrament Meeting last and thus, with a Spatig sighting, wouldn't get the church truncation benefits of folks, like us, who have it first in the three-hour block.

I should go on record here saying that while Spatig deserves to be heard, hijacking a church meeting isn't the best way to go about it. It won't help his cause -- although there is enough anti-government sentiment in some Mormon circles to make this approach logical. I don't support his storage of chemicals on his property, in the open, in the weather. If he wants to keep them, that's fine. But warehouse them and store them in a fashion that if, heaven forbid there is a leak or spill, it's properly contained. And if you're upset with the tactics of the local Constabulatory or the feds, take it up in the papers and in the courts. Taking it into the court of public opinion directly to the masses is only going to accomplish one thing: A one-week vacation from church.

Religious Unity, We Need More of This

(Tribune photo)

Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of the Chicago Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church, celebrated Catholic and Mormon unity as the churches and its members strive to work together to protect religious speech.

"I'm personally grateful," George said in a story in the Salt Lake Tribune, reporting as George spoke at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, "that, after 180 years of living mostly apart from one another, Catholics and Latter-day Saints have come to see one another as trustworthy partners in the defense of shared moral principles."

The Tribune goes on to say:

Freedom of religion, George said, is a fundamental right that cannot be reduced merely to a freedom to worship or freedom of conscience, as some in this country now advocate.

Such a limited notion of religious freedom is not the American tradition, he said. "It was the tradition of the Soviet Union."

True religious freedom, he said, includes "the right to exercise influence in the public square."

This kind of unity is going to be increasingly important for people of all faiths as those determined to erase or curtail religious freedoms in the United States band together as well. This kind of unity in a common cause will help those who believe avoid being shut out of public discourse by those who denigrate them for their belief.

This kind of unity also ought to encourage all of us on both sides of this divide to more openly practice the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have others do unto you) and to practice the tolerance the other side preaches. In other words, we can all have a say, publicly and privately on what we believe in. We can work to influence public policy, as is our right.

Ogden's Spaceport is Closing

Where'd the Spaceship Go?

This is kinda sad news, if you ask me.

Color me different, but I’ve always liked the look of the Ogden and Provo LDS temples. They’re unique. Different. Modern. Space-shippy. Something Glen A. Larson could be proud of.

But now the LDS church is going to completely remodel the Ogden temple’s exterior, transforming it from a nice bit of ‘60s art into, well, what I call a modern “box lunch” temple. Borr-ing.

I like that the upper portion of the current temple looks like it’s floating above the earth. I like its round shape that makes it look like it’s ready for the Columbia Exposition or the New York Worlds’ Fair. With this remodel, there's absolutely zero chance a sequel to "Men in Black" will ever be filmed in Ogden. Provo, hold on to your temple as currently designed; you may yet have a chance.

Thankfully, the church isn’t touching the similar Provo temple. At least for now. When I was at the MTC, I enjoyed the thought that after I walked up the hill to the temple and went inside, that we’d blast off into the outer stratosphere on a technically unexplainable journey to confer, converse, and hobnob with, well, whomever else was up there. (It has been noted in a study, I'll see if I can dredge up a link, that Mormons are among those least likely of religious adherents to be disturbed if intelligent life is found on other planets. I always assumed such without the study, and that the Ogden and Provo temples were in fact spaceship prototypes we'd use to hie ourselves to Kolob when it came time to hie.)

I don’t know why a lot of people have that fear and loathing of 60s and 70s architecture, especially really overblown architecture as is used in these two temples. I think it’s great. These buildings actually look different. They’re not the same “box with a steeple” that is so favored in temple architecture today. (If you ask me, the temples they ought to be updating are the inverted pizza box temples, such as they have in Boise.) But listen to me, the little LDS temple architecture critic.

Just don’t mess with the Idaho Falls temple. That’ll really get me riled up.

9 AM

For those of you unfamiliar with LDS Church doctrine, one of the church's truths is that every year the congregation you meet with changes its meeting time. This year, we've gone from meeting at 1 pm to meeting at 9 am, which has its benefits but also its various pitfalls.

First of all, when the alarm goes off at 7 am (alarms? On a Sunday morning?) it's still dark outside, this time of year. Reminds Michelle of waking our daughter for school a few months ago. Lexie was indignant that Mom was "waking her up at midnight!" to go to school. Michelle explained that it wasn't midnight, that it was, in fact, 7:30 am, and that it was time to go to school. Disbelieving her mother, Lexie looked out the window at the darkness still enveloping our little warty city and shrieked, "Then why is school starting at midnight?" That's how it was this morning. Dark as a black cat. Cold, too, five below zero, with the carbon monoxide alarm going off because the cold was driving the smoke DOWN the chimney, rather than up it.

(An aside: I used to laugh when Bill Cosby described, in one of his comedy routines, having to tell his children to use soap when they bathed. I don't see the humor in it now, as our oldest has now taken two baths this week without the benefit of soap.)

So the kids eat their breakfast while I go out to start up the van. Yes, it's only two blocks to church, but in this booger-freezing weather, walking to church simply isn't done.

But now we're home. Have been for nearly four hours. That means that, on our old schedule, we'd still be at church. I'm glad we're not.