Examples of Extreme Pressure to Conform in Mormonism
If you would like for us to consider adding your comments here, please send an e-mail to Rob@MormonInfo.org.
"[Lavina Fielding] Anderson was never informed exactly what her 1993 ‘apostasy’ consisted of. But everyone knows that she is being punished for a delivering a paper at the 1992 Sunstone Symposium, and publishing a version of it in Dialogue in 1993 that compiled data on more than one hundred examples of church repression against intellectuals. After the article came out, church members sent her information on another hundred cases. Rather than being removed for heresy, in other words, Anderson is suffering church discipline because she conveyed information on church discipline. Her most incendiary accusation was that headquarters operates a systematic clipping service to monitor individual Saints, carefully filing their letters to the editor, other writings, quotes in the media, and public activities. ‘We must protest, expose, and work against an internal espionage system that creates and maintains secret files on members of the church,’ she has declared.
The First Presidency later admitted that it had established the Strengthening Church Members Committee, led by two apostles, which ‘serves as a resource to priesthood leaders throughout the world.’ The Presidency cited precedent in Joseph Smith’s 1839 scriptural command that Saints document ‘abuses’ against them and collect the ‘libelous publications that are afloat’ (D&C 123). A spokesman said that Salt Lake officialdom merely supplies the data and that local church officials are responsible for any resulting actions taken against members.
No other sizable religion in America monitors its own followers in this way. The files are only one aspect of a meticulous system of internal discipline through which contemporary Mormonism operates more like a small cult than a major denomination. …But other denominations usually remove those who are found guilty from their jobs without expelling them from the church altogether. The LDS Church, however, is unusual in penalizing members for merely criticizing officialdom or for publishing truthful—if uncomfortable—information. Also, mainstream churches openly state the charges that are at issue (and Protestants often conduct public tribunals), while Mormon officials shroud their procedures with secrecy. The Mormon Church prosecutes many more of its members than do these other religious groups, which tend to focus discipline on clergy in important positions such as theology professorships. Such discipline of rank-and–file members in other churches is virtually unknown" (Ostling, Mormon America, 353-5).
In addition, it’s OK for Mormons to really question God’s existence, but no temple recommend is given if they can’t keep the word of wisdom. Average Mormons can’t go to the temple unless they lie to their bishop. But most Mormons don't care to work on exaltation in this life. I have a good LDS friend of mine who married an atheist. This atheist is still considered "Mormon." He never took his name off the membership roles. Now if Mormons were to start publicly criticizing the LDS Church and actively set out to remove their names from the roles, then of course there would be pressure applied to them. The Church Headquarters told my wife, for example, that there are "eternal consequences" at stake when she requested her name to be removed from their records. The LDS Church doesn’t really care about its inactive members except to use them as a "faith-promoting numbers" on their membership roles.
R. M. Sivulka
Rob@MormonInfo.org