Monday, June 23, 2014

Ring! Salt Lake Speaking….

Well, you’ll be happy to know that I’m definitely having a better Monday morning than are 12 old men in—presumably—Utah*.
These guys have a problem: the world they knew went away somewhere and came back entirely different. Because, in the past, it was easy: you kept everybody busy and isolated. So if you were in small towns in the American west, you devoted forty to sixty hours to making the desert bloom—which they did—and twenty or thirty hours going to church. That didn’t leave too much time for anything else but sleep. Oh, and since everybody else around you was doing the same thing, there was no possibility of dissent.
So that meant that all of the rest of us could—in spare moments—chuckle snidely at the more preposterous claims. Who can forget Mark Twain, one of the earliest and certainly one of the best critics, on the Book of Mormon?
All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the “elect” have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so “slow,” so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason. 
So all of us could sit around and snigger when every other institution in the States had to confront its own racism throughout the sixties and seventies, but the Mormons? Still barring blacks from the priesthood, which is generally given to every male child at age 12, until 1978. And then, as Wikipedia tells us, there came a little problem named Brazil, since it was no problem telling the women from the men. But the blacks from the whites? Right—so Spencer W. Kimball, the leader of the church, went off to his study, and guess what! There God was—in all his white maleness—dishing up a revelation! Wow—all in a day’s work!
But the 70s must seem like the most halcyon of days, since the most potent threat were quaint little things like newspapers and magazines, as well as books, of course. But all of that was easy enough, since it was easy to brand any criticism as that ol’ debil, the Eastern liberal intelligentsia. Oh, and do you think a librarian in Provo, Utah, is going to be putting seditious books on her shelves? Not likely.
So change, when it came, arrived as the gentlest of mists, not as a gale. And then?
Someone invented the Internet.
Which one person described as the gateway drug out of Mormonism, ‘cause how are you going to keep them down on the farm, once they’ve clicked on Google? And there’s another problem: since all the rest of us can fritter away the time with vices like drinking and smoking, the Mormons? They’re grimly, and soberly, sitting in front of their computers, writing blogs.
Yes—it seems that the Mormons are writing blogs to such an extent that a term had to be invented: the bloggernacle. Right, my computer doesn’t know it—nor will I teach it—but Wikipedia does:
The Mormon blogosphere (often referred to as the Bloggernacle) is a segment of the blogosphere focused on Mormon issues.[1] The term "Bloggernacle" was coined by individuals within the LDS blogging community as a play on the name of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir; however, not all LDS-themed bloggers like or use the name Bloggernacle, or even consider their blog to be part of it. Furthermore, not all bloggers within the Mormon blogosphere are Mormons themselves.
So on 17 March 2013, Kate Kelly, a lawyer and devout Mormon—she did her year of missionary service in Barcelona, and why does that feel ever so slightly bogus?—created a website, ordainwomen.org.
Hmmm—let’s see: who was it that said there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come?
Answer—Victor Hugo….
Astonishing, really, how all the world’s media has followed this blog’s lead in championing this story! Not just people like me, but little guys like The New York Times, and Yahoo, and even way down south in Australia—anywhere, in fact, where they have Mormons (everywhere) and women (also everywhere). So yesterday, we were all sitting around scratching the collective head: some of us at home, but 200 people or so with Kelly in a vigil in Salt Lake City. Oh, and there were vigils in seventeen other countries—eighteen, if we count little Marc down here in San Juan, Puerto Rico. And why were we all vigiling?
OK—return to your seats, fasten your seat belts and lock your tray tables onto the seat in front of you: it turns out that ordainwomen.org advocates for the—deep breath, here—ordination of women! And that, to the twelve “apostles” of the Mormon Church, is apostasy, another word for which is heresy. So Kelly’s local leaders called her in for a trial yesterday.
Except not—since Kelly is now living in Utah, and had requested that the church transfer her records there.  Here’s what Kelly wrote in the first paragraph of her letter:
I beg of you not to impose any form of discipline during the trial you will hold on Sunday. I also request that you do the right thing and revoke the “informal probation” that was placed upon me and remove the “move restriction” placed on my records so that I can participate in the ward where I currently reside. Please reconsider this punitive process and allow me to continue to worship in peace.
In theory—and Salt Lake is playing this trumpet as loud as Gabriel ever did—discipline is entirely in local hands, and the central hands have nothing, nothing, to do with it.  But it is interesting that the big boys from Salt Lake had visited Kelly’s stake—the words blogging teaches you!—and then, boom! Oh, and the same thing happened to another blogger, John Dehlin. Stay tuned—his trial is next Sunday….
Well, if the French word for a bluffer is bluffeur, am I—on this issue—a scoffeur?  Because of course I know what has to be done. Tom Monson, the current president, needs to be sent to his room, in order to be served up God’s most recent revelation: the Internet, and especially Google, is the work of Satan himself, sent to snare the faithful and lead them to perdition!
Easy for me to laugh—but in one sentence, which of course I can’t find now, Kelly pleads not to be excommunicated and deprived of spending the rest of eternity without her family. Because that, you see, is what she / they / if-not-I believe. When she dies, she will—if in good standing with the church—spend all eternity with her loved ones. If not, not.
The church asked her to take down the site and sit down and be a good girl, and in her letter she makes it clear: no dice. So the trial was yesterday, and then the three judges announced—they were stumped! So they fired off an email—guys, is an electronic transmission an appropriate media to announce loss of eternal life? Shouldn’t the local bishop drop by to break the bad news? Right—the judges announced that they would sleep prayerfully on the matter, and let Kelly know in a day or two.
Why do I think there are a lot of calls to and from Salt Lake this morning?
---------------------------------
*Ever faithful to my bloggerly vocation, I calculated the total years of the twelve, and guess what? It’s 940, or almost halfway back to Jesus himself! Oh, and the average age is 78.3….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_of_the_Twelve_Apostles_%28LDS_Church%29

3 comments:

  1. Dear Learned Friend,

    Looking forward to some enlightenment and perhaps even some new information on the subject of Kate Kelly and her fate, regarding her faith, I was hoping for an enjoyable experience and was gleefully anticipating your article.

    Unfortunately, I found neither new information nor enlightenment. Your treatise on the subject was almost similar to the way Mark Twain described his experience with the Book of Mormon. Of course, you have done your duty and outlined a somewhat chronological summary, complete with links to other sources and references. Thank you, but anyone who has even read just one or two news articles about Kate Kelly would have most likely gathered just as much information in the meantime.

    Yes, I do agree that you have a unique voice and writing style, and I understand that you might cater to an audience that might be unfamiliar with the subject at large, but if educating that audience is your intent, then your article does not offer much toward enlightening and/or informing those subjects either.

    I say these things in deep respect and without the intent of offending you personally. Everyone's a writer, I know, so write me off as another carnk if you want -- but you have the potential of being so much better, and I do mean that sincerely.

    In that vein, here are some specific issues that you brought up and which seem to warrant clarification.

    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

    In your 5th paragraph, you state:

    "Right—so Spencer W. Kimball, the leader of the church, went off to his study, and guess what! There God was—in all his white maleness—dishing up a revelation! Wow—all in a day’s work!"

    What, pray tell, are you insinuating happened all in a day's work? Please elaborate and/or finish your line of thought. It's hard to do mental acrobatics within someone else's mind, and we might only guess what you were trying to say.

    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

    Later on, you mention that Kate Kelly "did her year of missionary service in Barcelona, and why does that feel ever so slightly bogus?"

    Generally speaking, a typical mission of a female member of the LDS Church lasts 18 months, not merely a year. Is there a reason for you to you refer to Kate Kelly's mission as lasting only a year? If so, would you please furnish the appropriate sources for this statement?

    And why did you throw in the line about her mission feeling slightly bogus? Am I missing some sarcastic innuendo? Or is there more to it? If you could ellaborate on that, I would be very grateful to you.

    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

    As far as likening apostasy to heresy, this is your blog and you can, of course, write what you want (although there are some distinct differences between those two words).

    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

    A word of caution: Do some additional research as far as John Dehlin, before you lump him into the same excommunication soup bowl with the others. John Dehlin is motivated by money and power, and in this regard, he's on a planet all by himself, as far as excommunicating Mormon bloggers is concerned.

    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

    Please, do keep up your blog, and I'm looking forward to reading about your take on things in the future.

    Utah Versal
    (aka Phillip N. Shaffer)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Phillip, for writing so long and thoughtful a comment. The purpose of my blog is distinct from a more traditional venue like a newspaper or magazine. Thus, the comments about Barcelona and "all in a day's work" were merely lighthearted. I thank you for the information regarding the length of the mission for women. And you are quite correct in saying that there is a difference between heresy and apostasy.

      Thanks again for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  2. Gotcha! Now go ahead and write something new. I like light-hearted.

    ReplyDelete