I have remarked more than once that Mormons are often able to juggle contradictory ideas without, apparently, even being aware of the internal tensions (and without, therefore, being the least bit troubled by the cognitive dissonance that would otherwise weigh down even the sturdiest among us).
Here’s an example:
Sunday School Comment #1: “Sometimes people who aren’t Mormons just think that we’re robots–that we do whatever our leaders tell us to do. That’s not true. Each of us has to make decisions for ourselves.”
Everyone nods in agreement. The lesson goes on.
Sunday School Comment #2 (not more than 5 minutes later): “At the end of the day, what’s important is that we are obedient. The prophet will never lead us astray–we’ve been told that–so if we’re exactly obedient, we’ll be safe.”
Everyone nods in agreement. The lesson goes on.
Here’s another one:
Family Proclamation: “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness. . . .”
Family Proclamation (2 sentences later in the same paragraph): “In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.”
And here’s another example I ran across today (after my 12-year daughter said she had “another” lesson about “why men are in charge of women” in Young Women’s and I checked the lesson out on the church website; Note that the smartass comments in parentheses are not in the manual):
Chalkboard discussion
What can you do as a young woman to actively support a young man who holds the priesthood? List the young women’s ideas on the chalkboard. Some of the following might be included:
1. Concentrate on his good points [Okay, I’ll let this slide.]
2. Supply ideas [Ideas for what? How he can do a better job leading while you try to improve his driving from the backseat?]
3. Treat him as you want him to become [In other words, treat him as a spiritual leader–as your spiritual leader–unless of course you subscribe to the radical notion of gender equality when it comes to religious authority.]
4. Have a listening ear [Okay, listening seems fairly harmless, but after the last two entries, I’m suspicious of pretty much everything on this list, so I’m reserving judgment.]
5. Be honest in your praise [And if being honest doesn’t involve praise, is it still valued?]
6. Support him in projects and callings [And realize that you will never have a calling in the church that doesn’t involve you serving under the direction of men.]
7. Be a counselor, when asked [Because, of course, women have no right to counsel men, unless asked.]
8. Do what is delegated to you [Well, this statement about sums it up, doesn’t it?]
9. Sustain him with your prayers [Because presiding is, after all, hard work.]
And then, in the NEXT paragraph, it states:
There is indeed no privileged class or sex within the true Church of Christ; and in reality there can be no discrimination between the sexes only as human beings make it or permit it. Men have their work to do and their powers to exercise for the benefit of all the members of the Church regardless of sex or age.
I particularly like that this paragraph, which contradicts at least half of the list above it, also contradicts itself. After stating that there is no “privileged class or sex” within the church, the second sentence starts out by explicity naming a privileged class defined by sex: “Men have their work to do. . . .”
***Face Palm***
Here’s the standard Mormon approach: 1) Start out by assuming that there cannot be any contradiction, 2) Assuming that there is no contradiction, come up with some way of explaining why there only “appears” to be a contradiction), 3) If for some reason there still appears to be a contradiction, then simply assume that “God’s ways are not our ways” and forget about it, 4) If one is still bothered by the apparent contradiction, then go back to #1 and repeat.
I’m not sure even the standard Mormon approach works in this case.
Anyone else want to add a contradiction or two?
[Last Post: 27 The CleanFlix Documentary]
“Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.”
Wait till I get going! Where was I?
Homosexuality is wrong and unnatural./”The natural man is an enemy to God.”
Having to go to tithing settlement to “settle” with the lord, yet the church’s finances go unchecked.
The boiling frog parable: Sin gets you a little bit at a time, without you realizing it; and before you know it, you are dead.
Milk before meat: New members and investigators can’t handle the whole truth. They need to be spoon-fed a little bit at a time until they have a testimony.
I love the contradiction between the ‘plain and precious truths” and “Well, we don’t know the answer to that question. It will all make sense in the next life.”
Secret Combinations vs. The Temple Ceremony
While the modern mainstream LDS church abhors and condemns any sexual activity outside of marriage, 19th-century church leaders were having sex with up to dozens of women to whom they were not legally married.
It’s not a secret combination, it’s a sacred combination.
@dadsprimalscream, your list is great. . .
Hadn’t thought of the boiling frog / milk before meat parallel.
Closely related to this is “Proclaim the truth from the mountain tops (because we’re the only ones that have it)” attitude vs. “We can’t tell you the truth yet, because you can’t handle it” line.
And yes, the “plain and precious truths” line (implying that more sophisticated theologies are inferior) contrasts nicely with the “God’s ways are not our ways, so we can’t be expected to understand” excuse that gets trotted out anytime someone comes up with a complicated question.
Don’t get me started on the COMPLETE lack of transparency in church finances. . . . (on the upside, we now all own a nice mall).
No, you don’t. >.>; Your church’s appointed leaders do. You don’t have any control or “stewardship” over what goes on in your own ward unless you’re in a leadership position of some kind, let alone the church as a whole or its numerous profit-making businesses.
I LOVE this. Thank you!!!!!
How about during the ERA campaign the church made buttons that said: “ERA no, Equality Yes!” :)
Brent,
Only a “so-called intellectual” would see dissonance in the comments of Sunday School class members–let alone the inspired truths in our Church lesson manuals.
Course Correction,
The lesson manuals are inspired? By whom? Sunday school comments are ridiculous, you have a bunch of people with like views (who also happen to believe that they have the only real truth) sit around and talk about how good they are and how foolish everyone else is.
If you don’t see the blatant dissonance in the above lessons, then you have unwittingly proven the author right. Thanks for the laugh.
Pretty sure Course Correction is being sarcastic….
Well, I was accused by the first commenter of having a truly “dizzying intellect.” Clearly that is the problem (laughing).
Adam and Eve were vegans.
We’ll all be vegans in the millennium.
Vegans are evil.
I remember when I met another LDS vegetarian at Institute, and was like “So … how many people have told you it’s against the commandments to be a vegetarian?” And she laughed.
It’s like a rite of passage or something. To get told things like “The prophet eats meat. Do you think that you’re better than he is!?” As though you’re the one who is “prideful.”
Nice post, Brent. I particularly like that you highlighted that one paragraph at the end of the lesson:
There is indeed no privileged class or sex within the true Church of Christ
I think my sister Kiskilili once called this the “abracadabra hermeneutic.” The problem is that asserting it doesn’t make it so, particularly in the face of so much practice that shows that of course there’s a privileged sex. Well, either that, I guess, or the manual writers were subversively suggesting that the LDS Church isn’t the true Church of Christ.
“If you don’t have a testimony, fake it until you do.”