Gospel Principles #3 - Jesus Christ, Our Chosen Leader and Savior (NOM version)

I actually didn't teach this lesson in Relief Society because of the way the schedule was arranged that particular year. I taught lesson #2 instead, but it didn't seem like a terribly interesting one discussion-wise. Therefore, I decided to do this one instead. For reference, see Jesus Christ, Our Chosen Leader and Savior in the Gospel Principles manual.

Growing up I always had a fairly strong personal belief and relationship with God ever since I was 14 years old (as I wrote about earlier), but it took me considerably longer to develop my relationship with Christ, most likely because I felt closer to God through prayer. (For those of you from other faith traditions who are reading this blog, Mormonism posits that God and Christ are two separate individuals.) My freshman year at BYU I experienced a period of intense disillusionment with church culture and felt very estranged from Mormonism although I continued to attend church. My sophomore year of BYU, I started to warm back up to Mormonism again as a result of some loving roommates. One day, after listening to a BYU Devotional with Neal A. Maxwell, I felt the strong desire to recommit myself to God and Mormonism. The day of my re-conversion I spent several hours in prayer and repentance. It was then that I developed a close, intensely personal relationship with Christ, which I maintained as a strong source of comfort and direction for nearly a decade.

But these days I am highly skeptical of the divinity of Christ. My current worldview was very painful for me to accept, but it was the result of my study of the research conducted by scholars of New Testament textual criticism over the last 300 years. I'll discuss why I find their evidence persuasive and I'll end this blog entry on a positive note by talking about how I still feel the concepts of grace and the Atonement are still psychologically useful.

Problems With the New Testament
When I try to accept the divinity of Christ, I find myself in an epistemological quandary. That's a fancy way of saying that it's difficult for me to trust the authority of most sources that claim to provide me with direct, credible knowledge about Christ's divinity. Aside from personal or prophetic revelation (which have their own epistemological flaws that I won't get into here), our main source of access to knowledge about Christ's life and teaching is the New Testament (as well as some extra-canonical Christian literature such as the Gospels of Thomas and Mary). Although I sincerely believe that Christ existed historically and that we can re-construct fragments of his life and original teachings, it is extremely difficult to do so---especially if we use the New Testament in its current form as our exclusive source of knowledge about Christ.

The first problem that I've had in trying to access the truth about Jesus has come as I've studied the history of how the New Testament came into existence. The books of the New Testament were not written chronologically in the order they appear in the New Testament. Here's a nice little graphic I got from Jared Anderson that shows the timeline of when the books of the New Testament were written, according to scholarly textual research:

I don't have the time to rehearse the scholarly methodology used to construct this timeline. You'll just have to trust me when I say that this timeline represents the prevailing scholarly consensus of the dates these books were written. I've listed some helpful sources in my footnotes of this blog entry for further study, if you're so inclined. [1]

As you can see from the chart above, the first books of the New Testament were written by Paul, composed nearly 20 years after the death of Jesus. The Four Gospels were written in the decades after Paul's death in the latter half of the first century. Most contemporary scholars accept something called the "Q hypothesis," which posits that "the material common to Matthew and Luke, but lacking in Mark, probably came from a source no longer extant and commonly designated as 'Q' (from the German Quelle, meaning source)." [2] It was a text that was hypothetically based on an oral tradition dating back to Jesus's time.

Most modern scholars also assume that "despite the identification of these gospels with individual men, we have no reliable historical information about the actual authors of the gospels." [3]  Most scholars assume that John was written by a particular religious community---typically referred to by scholars as the Johannine community. They also infer that the Book of Acts was written by the same author(s) who wrote Luke.

Furthermore, most Biblical scholars agree that the books of the New Testament were written for specific theological and rhetorical purposes. Kraemer and D'Angelo describe the prevailing scholarly consensus:

All presume that early Christian gospels, whether included in the canon of the New Testament or not, reflect the intentional activity of ancient authors and ancient transmitters of traditions about Jesus and about those who made up the early communities of his followers. All recognize that the fundamental character of these traditions is theological, which means, among other things, that their primary concern is to interpret Jesus called Christ to diverse communities of followers, and they are only incidentally at best interested in what we might understand as "history." All acknowledge that a significant portion of these traditions is unlikely to be historically reliable. [4]

Simply put, the writers of the New Testament were less concerned with creating an accurate historical representation of Jesus and were more interested in putting a particular spin on Jesus and his teachings for specific audiences---and for shrewdly calculated rhetorical purposes. (For example, the gospel of Matthew may have been written for the purpose of creating a Jewish-Christian hybrid religion. The gospel of John is decidedly more gnostic in its tone and reflects the fundamental values of the Johannine community that produced it. And so forth.) What this means is that the representation of Jesus in these books is constantly being mediated by the particular rhetorical agendas of its authors. In other words, in these books of the New Testament, we're getting a varied interpretations of Jesus that are being filtered through and colored by specific worldviews, theological values, and rhetorical agendas. As Mormons we're used to reading the Gospels in parallel with each other in Sunday School, cherry-picking our favorite parts to reinforce our contemporary Mormon views. There is some value in this approach, but it can also potentially blind you to other more useful or accurate interpretations of the texts.

Furthermore, it is important to note that several of the books of the New Testament that are attributed to Paul are believed by many scholars to be pseudepigrapha, meaning that they were letters falsely written in the 2nd century in Paul's name after the fact. These writings were written by well-intentioned individuals who likely saw no real ethical harm in what they were doing. They merely wanted to authoritatively settle the theological disputes that were plaguing early Christian communities (for example, issues of high or low Christology, gnosticism, monotheism, and---most importantly to me as a contemporary Mormon feminist---defining the role of women in the early church).

So, that's how the New Testament was constructed timeline-wise, but that's only the tip of the iceberg as far as problems with the New Testament are concerned. As Bart Ehrmann, a well-respected New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill, explains:

It is one thing to say that the original [manuscripts of the books of the New Testament] were inspired, but the reality is that we don’t have the originals—so saying they were inspired doesn’t help me much, unless I can reconstruct the originals.

Moreover, the vast majority of Christians for the entire history of the church have not had access to the originals, making their inspiration something of a moot point. Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies of the originals. We don’t even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later—much later. In most instances, they are copies made many centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places. …

[T]hese copies differ from one another in so many places that we don’t even know how many differences there are. Possibly it is easiest to put it in comparative terms: there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament. Most of these differences are completely immaterial and insignificant. ... Even so, what's one to make of all these differences? If one wants to insist that God inspired the very words of scripture, what would be the point if we don't have the very words of scripture? In some places, as we will see [later in this book], we simply cannot be sure that we have reconstructed the original text accurately. It’s a bit hard to know what the words of the Bible mean if we don’t even know what the words are! [5]

As Ehrman is alluding to here, the New Testament has changed dramatically as it has been passed down through the centuries. We have no access to the original manuscripts of the New Testament, nor do I think we have any hope of being able to have access to the originals one day. The existing manuscripts that we have today are copies of copies of copies and they contain a multitude of discrepancies---some changes made on accident by the unprofessional scribes of the early centuries and some changes made deliberately for politically and theologically motivated purposes. I also feel that the process of canonization was also a very political process that was particularly oppressive to views that gave an equal role to women in Christian communities.

In short, I feel that the New Testament is a very unstable, unreliable text. We cannot un-complicatedly state that it gives us pure, direct access to Christ and his teachings. We simply do not have access to any kind of authoritative, genuine record of what those teachings really were in any kind of pure form. We only have access to a murky shadow of what it might have been.

Mormons have an "out" for this, of course. According to the 9th Article of Faith, Mormons are only obliged to believe the Bible is the word of God "as far as it is translated correctly." I'm not going to claim to know what Joseph Smith really meant when he penned those words. However, by this logic it almost stands to reason that since the "translations" of these Biblical texts have been proven to be so utterly riddled with centuries of errors that the Bible should practically be rejected in its entirety---which I'm fairly certain was not Joseph Smith's intent. Furthermore, I am extremely hesitant to trust Joseph Smith's supposed translation of the Bible as being authoritative in any way---especially given the multitude of problems with the Book of Abraham. (And we haven't even mentioned that if, according to Mormon theology, the Great Apostasy began shortly after Paul's death, which is traditionally believed to be around 67 A.D., then that throws suspicion on nearly 2/3 of the New Testament as being corrupted by apostasy---including the four Gospels.)

We simply have to accept that the New Testament and its representation of Christ and early Christianity is problematic at best. I just can't trust the authoritativeness of the New Testament any more, as much as I may want to on an emotional level. If it truly is the word of God, then it is clearly a very flawed vehicle for it---and it has the suspicious imprint of human hands all throughout it. [6]

My Current View of Christology
I want to point to Mark 16 as an example of a particular disputed chapter in textual criticism that illustrates my current perspectives on Christ. There is an intense debate about whether verses 9-20 of Mark 16 were in the original Markan manuscript or not. Mark is, of course, believed by scholars to be the first gospel that was written and is known to be one of the sources of material used by the authors of Matthew and Luke when composing their gospels. The disputed verses of the final chapter of Mark provide an account of Jesus's resurrection.

The controversy between scholars about these verses comes from the fact that these verses are missing from two of our earliest and most complete Markan manuscripts: Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, dated mid-300's A.D. To be fair, I should also mention that the scribes who wrote these two codices left some blank space after verse 8, indicating that they were possibly aware of a longer ending to the Gospel of Mark, but they did not have it available from the manuscripts they were copying.

Most other manuscripts of Mark 16 and early versions (such as translations into other languages) include verses 9-20. There is also evidence that the early Christian church leaders immediately following the apostles' deaths may have been aware of these verses. [7]

Nevertheless, I personally think it makes sense that they were not original to Mark. The Gospel of Mark seems to have a very low Christology, meaning that he does not seem to be terribly concerned with proving that Jesus was divine (at least not the way Luke or other gospels seem to be). And it's important to note that many early Christians would have had differing views on Christology in general. Christian communities which had low Christologies were certainly in existence at the time Mark was written.

This is just one key example of several important verses that are either in dispute by New Testament scholars or which are considered by scholars to be later additions by scribes. While many of these changes are inconsqeuential, some have a very direct impact on our understanding of Christology and Christ's original theology.

My own personal belief based on my study of the New Testament is that when Christ was alive, his followers sincerely believed that he was the predicted Messiah who would deliver the Jews from political bondage under the Romans. Christ and his followers likely believed that the end of the world was coming soon and the Kingdom of God would soon be established on the earth. When the Romans assassinated Christ, it threw the early Christian community into theological chaos. How could he be their liberator if he was dead? Paul helped to make sense of this theological problem by preaching that Christ would return in glory soon and would bring about the kingdom of God. As is clear from the original letters of Paul, he and his followers were millenarians, which means they sincerely believed that they would one day live to see the Second Coming. As time passed and the original Christians converts began to die, the younger Christian communities had to deal with the theological cognitive dissonance caused by the fact that Christ hadn't come yet. I think that the theology of grace (the Atonement, as Mormons call it) and resurrection were later theological adaptations created by Christians as a way to make sense of Christ's absence. We've seen this kind of pattern for resolving millenarian cognitive dissonance emerge time and time again with many Christian sects in more contemporary times (and I include the Mormonism in that category, given that many early Saints fully believed the second coming would occur in 1890). In short, I think the version of Christianity that has survived today is a complex, man-made theological construction that is very different from what the earliest Christians believed---including possibly Christ himself.

I recognize this view is a bit naive, underdeveloped and awkwardly expressed. I'm not a Biblical scholar; just a Biblical enthusiast who likes to read scholarly Biblical criticism. As such, my views are liable to change as more information and evidence comes in. But, nevertheless, that's where I currently stand on the matter: the Atonement and other high-Christological concepts were theological innovations that emerged later in the development of Christianity (or were at least in strong competition with other views of Christ in ancient Christianity). I therefore am skeptical of the evidence that Christ is a divine being.

Nevertheless, the Atonement is Still a Useful Concept
That being said, I generally keep my agnostic beliefs about Christ to myself. On one level, I do that because I don't want to start a fight with anyone. But on another level, I don't want to hurt anyone's beliefs in the Atonement. Although I think there are some potentially damaging elements of the idea that God hates sin and requires suffering as recompense for sin, I nevertheless see value in the concept of Christ and the Atonement. [8]

Let me relate a brief story without going into too much detail. A while ago I broke an important promise that I had made to someone. It was a promise that no longer had any intrinsic meaning to me and which would have meant nothing to someone who didn't understand the context. But I felt tremendously guilty about my actions the next day---a feeling that I had not in any way anticipated. I knew that I couldn’t undo the effects of my actions because I couldn’t change the past---I couldn’t un-break my promise. All I could really do to learn from the event so that I could avoid making the same mistake in the future. And although I had stopped believing in the literal Atonement long before that event occurred, I admittedly mourned for my loss of faith in it on that day.

Guilt can sometimes be a productive, pro-social emotion---but when we wallow in it or experience it unnecessarily, it can become unhealthy. And so I think I mourned for my belief in the Atonement because I wanted to displace guilt/pain the way I used to by just handing it over to Christ. It had been so much easier, so much more convenient really, before my beliefs about Christ had gotten so complicated.

As I was reflecting on that, I was thinking about how psychologically useful the concept of repentence is. From a certain point of view, it’s like giving us a way to “change” the past even though we can’t actually change the past. And repentence allows us to psychologically put our guilt about the past behind us and move forward doing good works in the future—with our psychological image of ourselves as “still a good person” relatively intact (which is itself another very useful social fiction). [9]

The problem for me is the dilemma of the placebo effect: the Atonement doesn’t work if you know how it works. I see value in the concept, but I can’t personally psyche myself into it believing it—even though I miss the function that it used to have in my life. Now, let me state that I do believe it is possible to train yourself to let go of the past and be optimistic about the future without the aid of the Atonement---but it is a lot more difficult to do on your own because it does require deliberate training and personal discipline.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I wouldn't ever want to take someone's placebo effect away from them. If their beliefs are working for them, why try to disabuse them of it? But for me, I'm personally more interested in having an accurate view of the world than believing in social fictions---useful though those fictions may be.

Footnotes
 [1] For a good and accessible summary of the history, methodology, and evidence accumulated over the last 300 years of New Testament criticism, I would recommend reading Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why a trade book written for a lay audience by Bart Ehrmann, a well-respected New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill. I would also recommend listening to Jared Anderson's "An Academic Introduction to the New Testament" on the Mormon Stories podcast. Lastly, I'd recommend investing in a study Bible such as the New Revised Standard Version. (I believe my husband and I use the Harper-Collins edition.) I list my sources here so that you know I'm not just pulling this stuff from Joe Schmoe's Anti-Christ website. This is legitimate scholarship being made by individuals who have devoted their life and careers to the study of ancient Greek languages and the New Testament manuscripts. They study the Bible in a league of their own and to disrespect their scholarship shows incredible audacity, naivete and ignorance of this field of study.

[2] Kraemer, Ross Shepherd and Mary Rose D'Angelo, eds. Women and Christian Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ehrmann, ibid.

[6] Just as a humorous side note. An image was floating around the Internet that said: "To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click 'I agree.' "

[7] This is a very complicated debate and one that I'm not fully qualified to retrace, so I'll refer you to Wikipedia's entry on Mark 16 for more information about the debate.

[8] It's useful to acknowledge that there are many different ways of conceiving of the concepts of grace and the Atonement.

[9] My friend who is a New Testament scholar with an LDS background wrote a beautiful Middle Way Mormonism post expressing similar ideas: "Jesus: Savior or Symbol."

An Email Exchange about the ERA

For various reasons, this week I found myself doing a little bit of research on Lavina Fielding Anderson and I read this paragraph (pp. 12-13) from an article she published in Dialogue 26.1 (1993) entitled "The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology":

This was a tad on the disturbing side for me. I couldn't help but see the parallels between the anti-ERA movement and the recent Proposition 8 issue. So, I was interested in getting some perspectives from a faithful LDS woman who has researched the ERA extensively. For that, I decided to contact my old BYU roommate who did her senior history thesis about the ERA. It's been a fairly interesting conversation so far, so I thought I would post selections from it here. I should note that I haven't mentioned to this roommate that I am an inactive from the church, so I am writing with sensitivity to that issue. Also, out of respect to her privacy, I can only include my half of the conversation, but here's some selections from my half of the exchange (sans all the personal chit-chat):

9-1-12:
I'm writing because I was just curious about your perspectives on the church's involvement with the ERA. I've been a big fan of Mormon Studies for the last couple of years and my studies usually delve deep into past church history as well as contemporary history. This past week, my studies have been taking me into the church's involvement with the ERA. I've actually been somewhat surprised by how extensively the church was involved in lobbying against the ERA. It concerns me a little bit from an issue of separation-of-church-and-state and also as a feminist. I am interested in hearing your take on this particular issue since you researched it extensively for your senior project. How do you feel about the ERA these days? What have your thoughts been on the matter? I'm open to whatever opinion you have on this issue. What conclusions have you come to?

Thanks in advance!

---

9-2-12:
I think your assessment that the church's official position of non-partisanship being promoted somewhat "unevenly" throughout the nation is a very reasonable perspective. Admittedly, I've been somewhat discouraged about what I've read about how local leaders (with a certain level of unofficial approval from general authorities) have acted in ways that appear to violate the church's policy of political neutrality. The fact that women were encouraged by their local bishops to attend the International Women's Conference and vote down all measures to give women equal pay is kind of eyebrow-raising when viewed retroactively from a 21st century perspective. That women were given anti-ERA callings and that ward meetinghouses were sometimes used for anti-ERA rallies is disheartening. That bishops raised funds in their wards for groups like FACT and ward newsletters were used for anti-ERA lobbying is similarly troubling. Sonia Johnson's excommunication (along with other disfellowshipments of high-profile Mormon feminists) is similarly discouraging, but it's difficult because you don't get to hear the church's side of the issue on those kinds of proceedings. I have also read accounts of women feeeling fairly hurt about the church's position on the ERA, including one LDS woman who felt so disenfranchised that she committed suicide. So, it's sometimes hard to feel positive about the church's involvement with this issue at times.

Nevertheless, I think your explanation is probably a fairly good one: that well-meaning local ecclesiastical leaders may have been perhaps too overzealous in trying to show their loyalty to the Brethren. Perhaps they began to go beyond the mark in terms of what the church headquarters officially sanctioned. That sounds like a plausible explanation to me. It doesn't necessarily make me feel happy about the events that occurred, but it does humanize them.

Thanks for sharing your perspectives and feel free to continue the dialogue if you so desire. I always enjoy hearing what you have to say.

---

9-3-12:

Thanks for sharing your perspectives. I agree with you that there needs to be room for free thought in the Church in order to maintain the overall health of the organization, but I wonder if that ideal might potentially be in conflict with the proscription against publicly criticizing church leadership. I have concerns that not allowing people to publicly criticize leaders creates a system in which there isn't enough ecclesiastical accountability.

On the one hand, I can understand how criticizing church leadership can be divisive. I can see how it has the potential to disrupt the harmony of a ward, a stake, or even the church in general. I can see also see that criticism can potentially be motivated by pride or selfishness or rebellion. Obedience, respect for others, and humility are certainly laudable virtues.

But on the other hand, I also think that virtues come in pairs. An excess in one virtue usually needs to be balanced out with another. For example, obedience, respect and humility also should be tempered with a healthy sense of self---an honest understanding of what you personally need to feel safe, happy and fulfilled. It's not healthy to serve and sacrifice for others to such a degree that you begin to neglect your own needs or do harm to yourself.

I've been speaking a little bit in the abstract terms, so let me speak a little more concretely. One way in which I am concerned about the blanket generalization that church members should never criticize their leaders is that sometimes criticism and negative feedback is actually useful and necessary. Sometimes criticism can actually make the organization aware of important concerns that need to be addressed.

For example, I have a friend who works with rape victims, helping them get counseling and legal advice. Since she's here in Utah, a lot of women who are referred to her are LDS. Most of these women talk to their bishops about the rape before they talk to anyone else. Most of the time, the bishops give rape victims good advice by helping them get in contact with the police and/or my friend's counseling program. But every once in a while, there will be a bishop who responds inappropriately by disfellowshipping the rape victim, claiming that it was her fault in some way. I am of the opinion that rape is never a woman's fault in any way. Women never, ever ask to be raped. I've also personally witnessed the emotional trauma caused by rape in some of my students' lives. What's equally disturbing is that sometimes when the rape victims will appeal their bishop's decision to disfellowship them with their stake presidents, the stake president unfortunately often sides with the bishop---usually because they trust the judgment of their bishops who they work with on a fairly close, personal basis. When that happens, there really is no recourse for a rape victim. She can possibly try to appeal to an Area Seventy, but that generally doesn't work. And since you can't write letters to the General Authorities any more, that option isn't available either. If that's the case, the only options left open to some women are to just suffer in silence, become disenfranchised from the church, or to speak out publicly about it. The fact that the Church Handbook of Instructions is sometimes followed (or not) in a fairly uneven way has the potential to be a bit of a problem in these kinds of cases---especially when there is no real recourse for a women except to speak out publicly.

So, for me, I think it's okay to have a proscription against publicly criticizing leaders. But I think that if the church is going to have such a proscription, then it needs to have a better internal system for handling members' grievances with their leaders. And there needs to be a better system through which members can express their valid concerns and opinions too (from big things---like asking whether Relief Society presidents can be given offices in the ward building the way Bishops have offices---to fairly innocuous things---like having a baby changing table in the men's bathroom or having a recycling bin available in the ward library room). Mormonism has got the top-down method of communication working really well, but the system for communication from the bottom-up still needs some work. Because allowing people to faithfully voice concerns makes the church healthier, safer, and more effective for everybody.

Thanks again for a good conversation.

Are You Experiencing Ex-Mormon Stereotype Threat?

Recently the concept of stereotype threat has made it onto my radar.  I think this particular concept might possibly explain some of the source of the anxieties I've been experiencing in relation to the church lately (e.g. I've been having panic attacks every time I have to interact with a ward member or discuss church-related issues with family members). Read on if you think you might relate...

 

What is Stereotype Threat?

Stereotype threat is the anxiety or concern caused when a person is in a situation that has the potential to confirm a negative stereotype about their social group.

The concept of stereotype threat made it onto my radar last week when NPR did a really fascinating story about how stereotypes can drive women to quit science. The NPR story reported about the recent findings of a group of researchers (Mehl and Schmader) from the University of Arizona about the gender gap in math and science. To study this phenomena, the researchers attached something called electronically-adapted recorders (EARs) to both male and female scientists. The EARs recorded 70 soundbites of conversation a day for 30-second intervals every 12 minutes. This provided the researchers with a good random sampling of the way male and female scientists talked with other male or female colleagues.

Follow-up interviews with the test subjects found that female scientists often reporting feeling disengaged about their work after having a a conversation with a male peer. Disengagement is a key predictor of the possibility that someone might leave a career, so the scientists dug into their recordings to find out what was causing this phenomena. Listening to the recordings, the researchers found:

When female scientists talked to other female scientists, they sounded perfectly competent. But when they talked to male colleagues, Mehl and Schmader found that they sounded less competent.

One obvious explanation was that the men were being nasty to their female colleagues and throwing them off their game. Mehl and Schmader checked the tapes.

"We don't have any evidence that there is anything that men are saying to make this happen," Schmader said.

But the audiotapes did provide a clue about what was going on. When the male and female scientists weren't talking about work, the women reported feeling more engaged.

For Mehl and Schmader, this was the smoking gun that an insidious psychological phenomenon called "stereotype threat" was at work. It could potentially explain the disparity between men and women pursuing science and math careers. ...

When there's a stereotype in the air and people are worried they might confirm the stereotype by performing poorly, their fears can inadvertently make the stereotype become self-fulfilling. ...

"For a female scientist, particularly talking to a male colleague, if she thinks it's possible he might hold this stereotype, a piece of her mind is spent monitoring the conversation and monitoring what it is she is saying, and wondering whether or not she is saying the right thing, and wondering whether or not she is sounding competent, and wondering whether or not she is confirming the stereotype," Schmader said.

All this worrying is distracting. It uses up brainpower. The worst part?

"By merely worrying about that more, one ends up sounding more incompetent," Schmader said.

Mehl and Schmader think that when female scientists talk to male colleagues about research, it brings the stereotype about men, women and science to the surface.

You don't have to be a woman or an ethnic minority to experience the anxiety caused by stereotype threat. Everyone is a member of some social group for which a negative stereotype exists. Which leads me to the next section of this essay...

Negative Stereotypes about Ex-Mormons

Ask any current or former member of the church and they will confirm for you that Mormons have very clearly defined cultural stereotypes about ex-Mormons. There's the standard "Sunday School" answers for why anyone could leave the church: they left because they were offended or they left because they wanted to sin.

Here's a few more:

• They left because they never had a deeply rooted testimony in the truthfulness of the gospel. They didn't receive a spiritual confirmation of the truth. They were converted to the church and not the gospel.
• They became too focused on things that were not essential to their salvation.
• They stopped doing the things that would invite the Spirit into their lives (reading the scriptures, praying, going to the temple, etc.).
• They were deceived by Satan's lies (anti-Mormon literature, the philosophies of men).

And on and on.

And, of course, you also have the stereotypes about how people behave after leaving the church. There's the stereotype about those who "leave the church but can't leave it alone," the angry, bitter apostates whose only desire is to fight against the church and attack faithful believers. Or there's also the idea that people leave the church and descend into utter depravity and misery.

My purpose here is not to refute these stereotypes, although I do find them inaccurate and offensive. My point is just to mention that these stereotypes exist---and, like all stereotypes, they have the effect of reducing a complex group of people and their individual experiences to a biased, flattened caricature of reality.

So, Do Ex-Mormons Experience Stereotype Threat?

As I've mentioned earlier and in previous blog entries, I've been experiencing anxiety when I'm around my ward members or when I have to talk about the church with family members. I experience problems like increased heart rate, dizziness, and stress hormones flushing through my body. I've also developed a fairly mild case of social anxiety disorder---a chronic fear of being judged by others or being hyper-aware of my actions when with a group of people. It's causing me to avoid social situations. (Like I can't even go for a walk outside with my husband without feeling anxious about encountering a neighbor approaching from a distance.)

I'm starting to wonder if stereotype threat could possibly explain this phenomenon. I realized this during a Facebook conversation I had today. I was talking with someone about how to manage visiting teachers and she gave me the advice to just be real about who I was. She talked about how having visiting teachers has actually been a good way for her to help believers deconstruct misconceptions about ex-Mormons. I responded:

I really, really want to be like you and show Mormons that you can still be an ethical, pleasant person with genuine reasons for believing in the things you believe or acting the way you act. You know---a human being.

I think you're absolutely right that the best approach is to just be respectful and authentic at the same time. I think the real challenge for me is that I'm suffering from "stereotype threat," which is the anxiety that gets produced by imagining that other people will view you in a negative way because of your social group (in this case ex-Mormonism). What I mean is that while I am comfortable with the new life path I've chosen for myself, I anticipate that everyone else will be highly critical and judgmental about it (which has definitely been the case with some people). So, I basically have come to expect the worst possible reaction from everyone about my decision to leave the church. And that makes me feel extremely emotionally vulnerable and unsure about being my honest, authentic self around them---for fear of disapproval. Unlike a person's gender or race, you can "hide" your religious beliefs and I've been passing as a believing Mormon to avoid displeasing people for so long that it's been difficult adjusting to just being out and real about it all, you know?

One thing that helped me to manage my anxieties in my first few months away from the church was to repeat a mantra to myself: "I will not take personally the reactions that other people may have about my decision to leave the church." You can't control how other people respond to you and it is futile to try to please everybody, but it can be hard to let go of the desire to make everyone happy sometimes. You can't let other people to cause you to abandon your sense of self.

I'll get there eventually!

An Analogy About the Correlation Program

One of my many academic degrees (too many) is in Film Studies. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine (who happens to be an ex-Mormon) had seen an indie film that she absolutely loved, but which wasn't in wide theatrical release and wasn't making very much money. She messaged me on Facebook to ask me whether my film studies classes discussed why mediocre or awful movies make a ton of money while truly good films often fail to turn a profit. The other day, I happened to re-read my reply to her because I was sending a message to her on Facebook. I was somewhat amused by it and since it was relevant to the content of this blog, I thought I'd re-post it here.

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What really is to blame for the fact that truly good movies (the ones that challenge our thinking and broaden our perceptions of the world) consistently fail to rise to the top of the box office while the Shrek 2s and Transformer 2s of the world take their place as all-time box office record-setters? We do explore questions related to this in film classes. It's a complicated question to answer because it takes a certain level of knowledge about film history and the mechanics of the current film industry.

My personal theory is that capitalism is to blame. For example, let's take your average big-budget, A-list Hollywood movies---the ones with all the expensive marketing designed to get butts into seats on opening night. These movies are calculated to appeal to large numbers of people (the mainstream movie-goer), which means they must appeal to the lowest common denominator of audiences who buy movie tickets. (Typically, the lowest common denominator is the pre-pubescent teen male. If the low brow, young male audience likes it, producers are willing to take a gamble that it will be broadly accessible to other audiences too.)

What that means that nearly every film goes through the "sausage machine" of Hollywood before it makes it to the theater. Producers usually reject original properties for tried-and-true standards with built-in audiences. ("Yay! Another Twilight or comic book movie!") Screenplays get all their originality edited out. ("We musn't offend!") And films get screened before test audiences and edited like crazy until they barely resemble the original screenplay. Then, they market the hell out of them. Because they know that even films that pretty much suck will still turn a decent profit after making the full rounds in international theaters and DVD sales (Tron 2, anyone?)---as long as they get enough butts into seats on opening weekend, since that's the only real benchmark of success. They don't care if you brought your mind into the theater with you or not. All that matters is whether you brought your wallet.

The best analogy I can make about this process is to compare it to the church's Correlation program. Anything weird or quirky about church history or doctrine gets edited out over time to appeal to the lowest common denominator: the new convert or investigator. Anything that goes through the sausage machine of Correlation comes out looking clean, orderly, and entirely unoffensive---but ultimately empty. But that doesn't matter as long as your butt's in the pews on Sundays. (Oh, and that you brought your tithing slip with you. Downtown malls don't build themselves, you know!)

Both Hollywood and the church think that we're happy to have a diet of popcorn and soda (because that's what test audiences have told them they prefer). But everybody knows this diet is neither sustaining nor satisfying. And those audiences/church members that are smart enough to realize it are finding other ways to fill the void. The real threat to Hollywood isn't pirated DVDs. And the real threat to Mormonism isn't "anti-Mormon literature." (Notice that both of these threats share the Internet in common.) The real threat is the system itself---and the empty sense of dissatisfaction created by its own hollow lack of substance.

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In all seriousness, the correlation program is pretty close to being at the top of my list of deeply felt concerns about the church. I literally wept while listening to Part 2 of Daymon Smith's Mormon Stories interview in which he described his dissertation about the Correlation program. It's hard to describe why it made me so emotional, but it bothered me on a very personal, gut level. It felt like the Correlation program was almost intentionally designed to make the church a place that was inhospitable to intellectuals like me. It made me feel profoundly alienated and alone.

And it furthermore made me realize that the church wasn't the way it is today as the result of any kind of calculated conspiracy by the individuals at the top. (Not that I ever really believed it was anyhow.) Rather, the fault lies in the institutional system itself. I recognize that nearly every institution is deliberately created by human beings to serve some noble purpose or meet a need of some kind (Correlation included). But after a point, most institutional systems begin to take on a life of their own, transcending and defying the conscious intentions of any individuals that belong to the institution. That's what the Correlation program has become. To state it bluntly, I feel that it is an anti-intellectual, patriarchal force designed to keep church members under control by shutting down any productive, evidence-based dialogues that could effect change (and thereby potentially threaten the organization in its current form). It is the institutional system itself that is reprobate.

Up to that point (this was around the summer of 2010), I had believed I could find a way to remain in the church even though I no longer accepted its truth claims. I felt that perhaps I could be a catalyst for positive cultural change in my own small way. But the more I learned about the Correlation program and its incredibly far reach, the more I began to realize that trying to be a change agent in the church was like being Don Quixote. I do admit there is a certain beauty in the quixotic pursuit of noble, foolishly impossible dreams. And in that same vein, I actually have a lot of admiration for people who preach the gospel of Middle Way Mormonism. But at the end of the day, I think it's absurd to try to fight a windmill. And my level of tolerance for the absurd is fairly low these days.

Strategies for Handling Church-Induced Anxiety

In my previous post, I wrote about how I was experiencing anxiety attacks whenever I had to discuss church-related topics with my family or ward members. I went to a therapist yesterday to get some advice about how to handle an attack when it occurs and also some long-term solutions for dealing with family members. The session was helpful, so I thought I'd pass on some of the guidance here.

How to Handle Anxiety Attacks

The first key is to recognize when an anxiety attack is occurring. As you pay better attention to your body, you'll start to see patterns in the situations that cause the anxiety to occur. You'll also begin to notice which symptoms you first experience when the anxiety attack is setting in. For me, it's a rapid heartbeat and I start to feel the first sensations of stress hormones.

When you start to feel the anxiety attack beginning, you need to take steps to resolve it as soon as possible. The longer an anxiety attack keeps going, the more it will spiral further downward into negativity---kind of like the snowball effect.

The first thing you need to do to resolve the anxiety attack is to consciously breathe in and out and slow your breathing down. You need to remind your body what relaxation feels like. Breathing is a cue to your body to cool down and not get upset. It helps your body's rhythms slow down and not get caught up in an intense rhythm. (It's harder for adrenaline to spread through your body when your heartbeat is down, for example.) Closing your eyes could also help.

The second thing is to get your mind focused on the present by noticing your environment. Anxiety attacks are basically caused by fears about the future that gradually crescendo and build until they become more and more extreme. So, by distracting yourself and thinking about the present, you don't allow your mind to develop fears that are centered in the future. So, look around your environment and pay attention to the tiny details of the room. Focus on the colors of the leaves of your houseplant or the patterns on the fabric of the chair you're sitting in or things like that. Live in the present. Another thing you can do is squeeze your fingers. Hold your thumb with your opposite hand and count to 5 or 10 and do that with all your other fingers until you feel better. (This works great for kids who have woken up from a nightmare too.) Take as much time as you need to be in this state.

After you've calmed down, take some time to reflect on the root cause of the anxiety. You don't have to do this right away. You can wait a few days. But when you are ready, ask yourself: what are you really afraid of? Is it based on a rational fear or an irrational fear? Think about it in terms of probabilities. For example, is it fairly probable that my father is going to disown me and never speak to me again. (No.) Is it fairly probable that he won't love me any more? (No.) And just keep talking yourself down from there until you find the border between your rational fears and your irrational ones. We spent a lot of the session talking about my irrational vs. rational fears.

Long-Term Solutions for Dealing With Family Members

I felt kind of proud of myself for realizing I needed to set boundaries before coming to the therapy session, but it was helpful to talk with the therapist about how to actually do it anyway.

The basic principle to keep in mind is to set a firm boundary but to show kindness and love at the same time. Decide what that boundary is and express it without any equivocation. Then follow it up with an expression of love. She also recommended writing this down in a letter since that is an easier way to communicate bad news to family members.

So, for example, my panic attack earlier this week was prompted by a phone call from my dad setting up a lunch appointment, which almost always means he wants to lecture me about the church. This has happened somewhat frequently since I announced to him I was having problems with the church. I need these anxiety-inducing discussions to stop.

The basic idea I need to communicate to him is: I am inactive from the church and that is non-negotiable; I don't want to discuss it. But I still love you and I want a relationship with you. (That way I have set a clear, firm boundary but am expressing kindness and empathy at the same time.)

That being said, you need to be cautious about over-empathizing with your parents. My therapist said that you shouldn't let their anxieties cause you to surrender your boundaries. You need to still protect your own sense of self.

She said that I need to be aware that when people hear bad news like this, they will likely go through 2 or more of the Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief. You may not always see them experiencing these stages, but it is likely to happen. (On the bright side, I can totally empathize with them since I experienced a lot of the stages of grief when I was going through my faith crisis.)

It's painful to know that you will disappoint someone, to know that you will cause them grief. But is it more important to make your parents happy or to do what you need to do in order to be happy? Obviously, you need to do what is best for your own mental health and well-being. You can't remain in a state of stress and anxiety just to please other people. And that might mean that you will cause some pain for the people you care about. But eventually, both you and they will reach a state of acceptance.

Redrawing Boundaries

My journey out of Mormonism has sometimes been a mixed bag, bringing both positive and negative changes to my life. One of the unfortunate negative changes is that I occasionally experience anxiety attacks whenever I have to talk to someone in my ward or when someone in my family tries to talk to me about the church. It's especially worse when someone stops by my house unannounced from my ward to talk with me.

I recognize on an intellectual level that the anxiety I experience is somewhat irrational. Nearly all of the time, these meetings turn out to be no big deal and are fairly harmless. The people I interact with usually have a genuine concern for my well-being and are not out to attack me. Nevertheless, I still experience sensations like a rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, mild sweatiness, and my body flushes with stress/attack hormones every time I have one of these encounters. My thoughts become intensely negative when someone from the ward sets up an appointment with me. My mind immediately jumps to the worst possible conclusions about their purpose for meeting with me and how the meeting will go. I always anticipate the worst. For this reason, I make an effort to avoid my ward members as much as I can and I try to dodge any inquiries my family makes about the church.

Obviously this stuff isn't good for my mental or physical health and it's not possible to avoid all of these encounters. For that reason, I'd like to learn how to better manage these anxiety attacks. One thing I've been doing is engaging in some self-reflection in order to understand what is at the root of this anxiety. I'm sure there's lots of different reasons why I experience anxiety: my propensity for pessimism, perhaps some mild social anxiety, and a fear of not being in full control of the situation (since I have a strong need to feel in control). But I recently had an epiphany that a big part of it comes from the concept of boundaries.

Most healthy people recognize the value of creating reasonable boundaries for themselves. They set boundaries for what they will and will not share about themselves with other people until there is a certain level of trust and intimacy in the relationship. They recognize that there are some things which are public and some things which are private. They set boundaries for what they will and will not do in certain social situations. Healthy people learn how to communicate to other people about those boundaries in ways that will hopefully not make other people defensive. It's a balancing act between being honest and showing respect. It's about being assertive and having a good sense of one's self in relation to other people. Lastly, healthy people also show respect for other people's boundaries. When someone tells them what their boundary is, they try not to cross it. They know that no means no.

I've realized that when I was a Mormon, I had no sense of how to create healthy boundaries for myself. That's partly because there's potentially a thin line between keeping some things private and lying. I definitely think that it's wrong to deliberately deceive or mislead people, particularly when withholding the truth will do harm to others. But I've also learned that there are times when it is fully appropriate not to disclose information about yourself unless you feel comfortable doing so. There are just some things that are really nobody's business until they've earned your trust---especially things like your private religious beliefs and practices. My experience in Mormonism might be different from others, but I internalized that it was dishonest and immoral to keep things about myself private, especially my beliefs. That's partly because Mormonism strongly emphasizes the public declaration of your private beliefs in church settings such as testimony meetings. Missionaries boldly knock on doors declaring their testimonies to anyone who will listen. You're also expected to fully disclose private beliefs or practices in counsels with bishops and other religious leaders with whom you may or may not have a personal relationship. To refuse to be fully candid with a religious leader would be looked upon as a sign of guilt, of having something to hide.

There might be an element of gender training at work here too, but I also internalized that it was wrong to say no if someone asked you to do something. In Mormonism, you are strongly encouraged to say yes to every calling that is extended to you. You are expected to help out whenever you are asked to serve and to do so without any complaint. You covenant in LDS temples to consecrate anything and everything that the church asks from you with no exceptions. If you are a woman, you are taught regularly that it's your job to sacrifice and give service to your children and your husband, putting their needs ahead of your own. In other words, there's not very many times when it's appropriate to say no in church culture. It's seen as rude, rebellious, or selfish to set boundaries for what you will or will not do. When people ask, you give. No boundaries. No exceptions. No personal customization. No negotiations.

I'm sure there are some fully active, believing Mormons out there who have figured out how to set healthy boundaries for themselves in spite of church culture. But somehow I wasn't one of them. Only now do I understand that it is healthy and reasonable to know your limitations and communicate them to others. Only now do I realize that it is healthy and normal to keep some things private. But I only understand it on an intellectual level; my emotions haven't quite caught up yet. I still feel anxiety, stress, guilt and shame when I set and enforce my personal boundaries. It still feels wrong to me on a gut level. It's probably going to take a while to de-program myself. But hopefully I will get there eventually.

What Happens If There Are Any Opposed?

I was fascinated to read this post on the Ex-Mormon Subbreddit by a user named JohnBrownsBody yesterday. I have no reason to suspect it's a fabrication, but I suppose it's possible. Either way, it makes for an interesting story.

Here's What Happened

The basic gist of the story is that this 17-year-old boy is an atheist whose parents still strongly believe in Mormonism. The boy's family traveled to Utah for Spring Break to see General Conference last week and brought the 17-year-old along for the Saturday afternoon session at the Conference Center.

Of course, during the Saturday afternoon session, the officers of the church are sustained by the congregation. When Uchtdorf read the names of the prophet and apostles and asked if there were any opposed, this 17-year-old raised his hand. After the sustaining votes were completed, two security guards motioned to the boy that he needed to come speak with them.

He followed them into a private room where they asked him for his name, his full address, the name of his ward, and the name of his bishop. They wrote all of this information down on a notepad. They interviewed the 17-year-old and asked him why he raised his hand to oppose the sustaining votes. He replied that he did not think that Thomas S. Monson and the apostles were prophets, seers, and revelators and so he raised his hand to indicate such. They asked him whether he came to the Conference for the purpose of voting in opposition. He explained that he came because his parents brought him.

The two security guards bore their testimony that they thought Thomas S. Monson was a great man and that they sustain him fully. They also had a discussion about what his parents must feel about him at this moment. According to the boy, the security guards listened to his response and then said: "Well, it looks like you're going through some hard times, I hope you get over it. We aren't trying to intimidate you or force you to believe something, but I hope you change your mind." The 17-year-old basically told them that probably wasn't going to happen.

The security guards frowned and then one of them silently took him out of the room. As they were leaving, the other guard stated: "We'll be in touch."

My Response

I'll give the security guards the benefit of doubt to say they were just doing their job, enforcing a policy that has been laid out for them by the organization they work for. To be fair, the security guards mentioned that this doesn't happen to them very often, so they were probably surprised and inadequately trained about how they were supposed to respond. And, oddly enough, on one level it's even nice to have all those rumors validated: if you raise your hand to oppose a leader, someone will actually take a moment to listen to you in confidence (which is undoubtedly supposed to be the intention behind that policy).

That being said, it's really difficult not to see the power dynamics underlying this entire exchange. Although the security guards emphasized that they were not trying to intimidate the boy, the entire context of the exchange suggests exactly the opposite. When a 17-old-boy is being ushered into a private room (with no parental consent or supervision, mind you) by a pair of older, male security guards---complete with suits and earpieces, how can that situation be interpreted as anything but intimidating? It evokes the imagery of a terrorist or suspected criminal being interrogated by the authorities. This is no heart-to-heart discussion with a personable ecclesiastical authority about genuine doubts and concerns that a young teenage boy is experiencing. This is a power play made by people in positions of authority against someone who has very little power in comparison. The fact that they took down his name, address, and ward information and said, "We'll be in touch" sends that message very clearly. I applaud the boy for his youthful chutzpah, but most other ordinary individuals would have felt fairly shamed and demoralized after such an experience. (Which is the whole point, right?)

The whole situation just speaks to what I've said earlier on this blog about the church failing to provide a healthy environment for independent thought. The fact that the church asks the question "Are there any opposed?" when officers are sustained superficially suggests that there is room to disagree with the sustaining out of good conscience. But we’ve all been in a meeting where a forgetful counselor neglects to ask if there are any opposed---for the very reason that no one really expects anyone to oppose it. Church members are habituated and socially pressured into voting unanimously in favor of what the leaders have proposed---which means that the possibility for dissent is ultimately only an illusion. [1] Then, when a 17-year-old calls them on their bluff, the fact that he is treated with suspicion and intimidation (as opposed to mutual respect and the open exchange of ideas) is rather telling, in my opinion.

The last thing I want to say about this is that if I worked for Kirton and McConkie (the Church's law firm), I would immediately advise the church to change their policy about how to treat dissenting votes in General Conference. I recognize that after the Cody Judy incident, the church needs a security team on hand to ensure the safety of the General Authorities. That being said, these issues need to be handled without violating the civil rights of suspects. Although I doubt this boy's parents will press charges, these security guards should have been accompanied by a lawyer who was getting this boy's parents to sign a ton of waivers for privacy, detainment, and future silence in order to avoid a lawsuit. That's because this is not only a clear example of how the church has little tolerance for criticism and dissent, but a potential violation of the boy's civil rights.

Footnotes

[1] If I'm not mistaken, from a strictly legal perspective, church members are not actually official members of the church anyway. Although the church retains membership records, the members don't actually have any voting rights in the organization/corporation like they do in other organized religions. (At least that's what I remember from the Mormon Stories interview conducted with Daymon Smith.) So, the whole voting thing is fairly farcical to begin with.