Sunday, July 1, 2012

The Mormon Moment: Romney Candidacy and Emergence of Liberal Reaction within Mormonism



The story about which I just blogged--the firing of Catholic teacher Trish Cameron in Moorhead, Minnesota, because she dared to write on a self-evaluation form that she does not agree with all church teachings (though she had never stated this in the classroom), obviously centers on the theme of conscience.  Though the U.S. Catholic bishops are staging lavish, expensive shock-and-awe political theater events this summer with claims that "Catholic" freedom of conscience is being trampled on, they themselves and the Vatican ride roughshod over the informed consciences of believers like Trish Cameron and many others.  


They ride roughshod over the informed consciences of those like Trish Cameron, who dare even to state--and on a self-evalaution form that asks for honesty!--that they have questions about some aspects of church teaching.  They do this to fellow Catholics like Trish Cameron, who now finds herself without a job after a number of years of faithful service as a Catholic teacher, and with no legal recourse to challenge her firing.

The same struggles of conscience, struggles centering on the attempt of authoritarian church leaders to command unwavering loyalty to their ideological positions, with movements of strong resistance challenging this authoritarianism on grounds of conscience, are occurring today in the Mormon church. As Troy Williams writes at Salon this morning, the rise of Mitt Romney to political prominence is spurring a liberal movement within the LDS church.

It's a good time to be a progressive Mormon, Williams cites Josh Dehlin, creator of the popular website Mormon Stories, to say.  Mormons whose consciences differ with those of top church leaders are pushing back against the ruling orthodoxy of the center, which has been articulated by those at the top including Elder Boyd K. Packer, as follows:

The dangers I speak of come from the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals.

Mormons who reject the hardline anti-gay stance of many of their church leaders have been participating in gay pride celebrations at various places in the U.S., dressed in church clothes as they march alongside their gay friends and family members.  One group of Mormons who are convinced their church leaders will not listen to appeals for dialogue recently publicly renounced their Mormonism in a mass event in Salt Lake City.  There are reports that many Mormons are quietly leaving the LDS church "in droves," and even top church officials admit that these reports are correct.  

At least part of the reason for this disaffection is the embarrassment church leaders created for the entire church through their overt politicization of the LDS church in the prop 8 battle in California.  For many Mormons who have a strong memory of the persecution their ancestors once endured as an embattled, despised minority, it is incomprehensible that their church leaders would now turn around and attack another embattled and despised minority.

The Williams article to which I link above also notes that the Internet has given many Mormons freedom to air ideas, learn more about their religion (and about critiques of their religion), and to organize.  It has given them freedom to develop and express their consciences, that is to say.

As a Catholic, I can't help seeing, of course, strong parallels between what's happening in the LDS church right now and in my own church--though hardly any of the leaders of my own church have been as forthcoming as have some Mormon leaders about admitting that people are leaving the Catholic church in droves, and that at least part of the reason for the mass exodus is the way in which Catholic leaders now trample on people's informed consciences when lay Catholics dissent from the current leaders' rabidly anti-gay stance.  

As a Catholic, I can't help reading Elder Packer's list of the "three great threats" to Mormon values--the gays, feminist ideas, and intellectuals and scholars--without hearing strong echoes of what my own church leaders are saying today as they turn the Catholic church into an anti-gay political machine, as they attack women, bash nuns, go after Girl Scouts, censor theologians, declare books written by highly respected nun-scholars for pluralistic academic audiences are unfaithful to Catholic teaching, etc.

As Williams's article about the liberal movement of reaction within contemporary Mormonism says, for some Mormons, the values represented by their current leaders as they go after gays, women, and scholars reflect the values of the 1950s.  Their leaders are stuck in the past, in the Cold War era.

Mormons in reaction against this mentality think that their religion has something of pertinence to say to contemporary culture beyond the perpetual no, no, no uttered by church leaders whose minds and hearts have not moved beyond the 1950s.  And so these dissenting Mormons are making their voices heard, precisely because they value their religious tradition and what it has to offer to the world.

For many Catholics, I'd say the same applies.  If the bishops' "Fortnight for Freedom" rallies are the best we have to offer to contemporary American culture, I'd say we're fairly well doomed to become a marginal fringe group caught in a cultural moment of the past that will be increasingly irrelevant to American culture in the 21st century.  As some commentators in the thread following this Catholic News Service report about the recent rally in Washington, D.C., are noting, just look at the picture accompanying the article, and ask yourself what it says about the bishops' worldview and bishops' values.

One commentator, Tea Party Jesus, writes, 

In the spirit of the many who've bashed the LCWR orders as being elderly and dying off...these folks all look really old. 
No diversity here: no youth, no multiplicity of races or sexual orientation. Most interesting of all: the picture doesn't show any women of childbearing age. Just older, well-off, white, Tea Party members with their hands patriotically placed over their hearts. Freedom of religious expression! 
Did they bring their concealed carry weapons--to help the bishops fight their war on contraception and the "sluts and whores" who take it? Freedom of religious expression! 
Will they start shooting at the gay folk, like the homosexual haters in Texas who killed those teenage girls? Freedom of religious expression! 
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis

In short, pictures of those turning out to support the bishops in the "religious freedom" rallies don't seem to many of us to represent a church that has any kind of viable future.  A church that wants to have a viable future has to have leaders who listen to and learn from the viewpoints of its members, even when those viewpoints differ from the orthodoxy officially mandated at the top.  A church that wants to have a significant effect on contemporary culture has to take seriously what the Catholic tradition has always taught about the sanctity of conscience, and stop trampling on the rights of lay conscience, even as the bishops clamor for their rights and their consciences to be respected.

Perhaps we could learn some valuable lessons right now from the Mormon community and how it's processing very similar struggles . . . .  At least in the Mormon governing structure, it appears there are a few leaders who are willing to reconsider the hardline orthodoxy that is leading to a mass exodus from the LDS church and to admit that this exodus is occurring.

I have yet to hear of any such admission among the current leaders of my Catholic church.

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