You’ll know
by now that I’m talking about the Mormon Church, which fought like Tasmanian devils
against marriage equality in California, then backed off and pretended to get
more inclusive when Mitt
Romney was running for president, and which now is accusing two of its
members of—ah, the horror of it all!—apostasy.
Well, it’s
a highly charged word in Mormon circles, since the Mormons, like the Jehovah’s
Witnesses and the Seventh Day
Adventists, believe in the Great Apostasy. You’ll
want to know: it’s the belief that everybody and every religion was wrong from
the death of Jesus to the birth of their own church.
So what
have the two Mormons done to get this label thrust on them? Well, John Dehlin advocates for
the rights of LGBT people within the church. Kate Kelly set up a group
that advocates for the ordination of women, as well as for increasing the role
of women in the church.
Both
have gotten letters from their local bishops, advising them that they will
be tried and face either disfellowship or excommunication. Disfellowship may
take various forms, but excommunication is dire indeed: you are erased from the
church as if you had never existed. And though the church doesn’t officially
practice shunning, your social calendar will definitely be much lighter. Oh,
and all those business contacts? You might be leaving a lot of voice mails, and
getting fewer returned calls.
And so for
these two, excommunication is a major, and perhaps terrifying, possibility.
Consider what one writer had to say:
Mormonism
is an "all or nothing" commitment, Rosen explains. "If Pandora's
box is opened regarding questioning one policy or mandate, it leads to more,
because it's all connected. It's not like other religions, where you can accept
some parts and reject other parts. You have to accept the whole kit and
caboodle. You have to accept every [church-mandated] 'calling.' You have to go
to every three-hour church meeting. If I didn't go [to synagogue] for six
months, the rabbi would be like, 'I am so happy to see you.' You can't do that
as a Mormon."
Ready for
the next paragraph?
Utah has
the highest rate of clinical depression out of any state in the country, and
the seventh highest suicide rate, according to a report by Thomson Healthcare. Rosen believes
the LDS stance on homosexuality contributes to
these statistics. One third of her patients are homosexuals who grew up LDS,
and many of them were kicked out of their homes.
Well, it’s
not surprising that Utah has the highest rate of depression, since wouldn’t you
be depressed, attending up to thirty hours of church activities weekly, and
having to smile all the time?
Right—that’s
unfair, and especially wrong since Dehlin, who is straight, has taken a big
risk for those of us who are LGBT. Besides his website Mormon Stories, he also has another site advocating gay
marriage. And he’s finishing up his doctorate in counseling at Utah State
University—not a particularly easy time to be butting the twelve elderly white
male heads that run the church. But you have to admire a guy who can write, as he did in his
website:
I believe
in many of the central, non-distinctive moral teachings within Mormonism
(e.g., love, kindness, charity, forgiveness, faith, hope), but either have
serious doubts about, or no longer believe many of the fundamental LDS church
truth claims (e.g., anthropomorphic God, “one true church with exclusive
authority,” that the current LDS church prophet receives privileged
communications from God, that The Book of Mormon and The Book of Abraham are
translations, polygamy, racist teachings in the Book of Mormon, that ordinances
are required for salvation, proxy work for the dead).
So on 7
June 2014, Dehlin got the letter that he must have been dreading. And the
following day, Kelly got the letter as well. In her case, the trial will be
this Sunday. In Dehlin’s case, it will be 29 June 14.
And while
neither one could be criticized for losing some sleep over the matter, Kelly’s
case seems to be particularly acute. Consider, for example, that she got a
whole group of women together and tried to enter a male-only meeting on the
priesthood at the tabernacle in Salt Lake City. Here
are her heartbreaking words:
I suppose I
didn’t realize until I was at the door and physically barred from entering the
Tabernacle just how hopeful I was that we would indeed get in. I told the man who
blocked us from entering, “I understand that all men, even men who
are not members of the church and have no investment in Mormonism are permitted
to attend. I am a returned missionary and a faithful Mormon woman and I would
like to listen to the prophet in person.”
He simply
said, “this session is actually for men only.”
And as
difficult it is to read, it’s infinitely more painful to see the clip below.
I’ll never
know—which would have been better, to be (as I am) a non-believer, or to grow
up in some faith, have it enrich my life, rage against it when I came out, and
then, perhaps, make my peace with it? What I do know is that believing in the
church, wanting to be in the church, and then being expelled would be infinitely
painful, especially in Utah.
And while I
very much hope that these two courageous souls can prevail…
…I’m not
putting money on it.
