Consistency?

Riddle me this, dear reader:

The Mormon church leadership has repeatedly stated its opposition to permanent body modification, specifically tattoos and body piercings.*

However, they do not offer counsel against certain permanent body modifications such as, for example, elective breast augmentation.

So what’s up with that particular inconsistency?

* Except for single ear piercings for women on which—and this makes me giggle every time i think about it—they take no position.

All those in favor, please signify…

I’ve been thinking lately about the asymmetries in the ways girls and boys are treated in the way things are currently structured within Mormonism, and here’s a subtle but (i think) important one: Active teen Mormon boys get more public approval of religious rites of passage than active teen Mormon girls do. Consider:

When a boy turns twelve, he gets presented before his congregation for being ordained as a deacon, and gets the affirmation of having everybody there affirm his worthiness.* When a girl turns twelve, she gets…well, bubkes. If she’s got a reasonably progressive bishop, she gets called up in front of the congregation and congratulated, but no affirmative vote by the congregation.

Age fourteen, same thing. Age sixteen, repeat it. And at age eighteen or nineteen, yet again. Every time, the boy gets positive affirmation, while the girl gets something rather less.

I’m not sure how this could be fixed, but i don’t think this is something rooted in doctrine so much as a “that’s the way we do stuff” sort of thing. I don’t know that the solution would be to have a sustaining vote for the girls at various ages (i mean, i don’t know what would be voted on, to begin with), but there’s got to be something. Thoughts?

* Yeah, i know, it’s possible that somebody in the congregation objects—but that’s rare enough that we can ignore it for the purpose of discussion, i think.

Laws? What laws?

The position of the Mormon church is that one should obey the laws of the nation in which one resides. In fact, holding (at least most, maybe even any) callings generally requires that one is not currently in a state of breaking local laws. However, the church makes it a point to not inquire into immigration status—so if someone is a resident of a place but they are breaking the law by not holding a legally valid residency status (i.e., citizenship or some other sort of residency permit), they can still hold a calling. In fact, i have known people who did not hold legal residence status in their country of residence but still received callings as full-time missionaries.

I figure that a number of people find this either good or bad,* but i simply find it interesting that the church has effectively decided to ignore one statutory part of the nature of national borders.

* And note that if there are any comments that seem to me to be even remotely a rant about immigration policy and enforcement, no matter how cogent they might be, will be summarily deleted.

Finishing early

So the (Roman Catholic) pope has now resigned, which got me to wondering: Can a Mormon prophet resign? I mean, we already have a precedent or two that a Mormon prophet doesn’t get removed from office when disabled (even in such a way that he’s mentally disabled to some extent), but could one simply announce that he’s not the prophet anymore? (Of course, part of the answer might simply be to ask what would stop him from doing so, if that’s what he wanted to do.) Also, if it happened, what would the ripple effects be?

Would anything change?

So the Boy Scouts of America is currently debating a change in policy, so that gay and lesbian individuals could participate in scouting. (Under current policy, homosexual youth and leaders are banned from participating in scouting.) There’s been some whispering around that if their policy is changed, several churches (including the Mormon church) will stop sponsoring scout troops.

Would the Mormon church necessarily have that reaction, though? I mean, according to church dogma, being homosexual (as opposed to participating in homosexual acts) is not sinful. Therefore, why wouldn’t the Mormon church be more than cool with having a celibate homosexual participate in church-sponsored scouting activities?

Settling an old one

As you may or may not know, the Lion House was one of Brigham Young’s homes, but it is now run by the Mormon church as a reception center, and it has a restaurant. I don’t know how long the image will be live, but this link shows an image of the daily menu for the Lion House Pantry (the name of the restaurant) for this past January. Note that one of the entrées is [drum roll] Coca-Cola pork.

I’m glad that the church has embraced cola beverages, so we can stop arguing about caffeine and start arguing over important things, like whether women must wear nylon stockings to church or not.

A very, very special night, apparently

So welcome to New Year’s Eve—the one holiday, according to the church’s Handbook, that, when it occurs on a Monday (as it does this year), church units are authorized to preempt family home evenings for a party.

I know it’s just me, but this just seems odd—not that there’s a carve-out for holidays and family home evening observance, but that if you’re going to pick exactly one holiday to allow that, it’d be this one. I mean, why not other holidays that already have a tradition of evening gatherings, like (in the United States) Memorial Day and Labor Day (and Independence Day, on years when it falls on a Monday), or explicitly religious holidays like Xmas Eve (when it falls on a Monday) or Easter Monday (in those jurisdictions where it’s celebrated)?

Halloween costumes

So the church doesn’t have a ban on cross-gender costumes (i.e., male people dressing up as females, female people dressing up as males), but every ward i’ve been in during my adult life* has sent out the word that such costumes wouldn’t be allowed at church events.

Is this one of those weird cases where there isn’t a de jure rule on what’s allowable in the church, but there is (at least in most cases) a de facto rule? What is everyone else’s experience?

* Possibly leaving aside my current ward—we opted out of our ward’s Halloween activity this year in favor of family stuff, so i didn’t pay attention to the rules here.

A questionable fast

So over the weekend i became the latest proud(?) recipient of the email going around asking all the Mormons in the country to spend Sunday, 30 September fasting and praying for the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney.

Can i just say how utterly wrong that is? Or even if it’s not wrong, it’s at least icky. And it’s icky and wrong—or at least it should be—no matter what side of the recent political debates you’re on. (That is, if you even care—and with that, a big Hello! to what the Blogger dashboard tells me is the occasional reader from Germany.)

I mean, c’mon, folks. Get real. Especially when the email contains lines like God loves the United States of America and he wants us to be successful as a nation, followed immediately by If we do all that we can through our hard work and prayers in behalf of Mitt Romney miracles will happen. (I have to admit that when i read that, my first thought was “What, we’ll suddenly be presented with a candidate who’s better than either of our choices? That’d be cool.” But then again, i’m pretty much an unreformed cynic, so you might not have thought the same thing.)

I mean, sure God loves the United States of America. I’m pretty certain about that—just as i’m certain that God loves Canada, and Mexico, and Germany, and Russia, and Kenya, and Djibouti, and Fiji, and India, and Pakistan, and Iran, and Israel, and Syria, and Uzbekistan, and [continue the list for nearly 200 more names of countries]. So why is our presidential election suddenly such a big deal to God? I’m pretty sure it isn’t, at least no more than elections in, say, Rwanda are. God loves all of us equally, after all.

And besides, we’ve already got Mormons in positions of power in the United States, anyway—isn’t Harry Reid, senator from Nevada, the Senate Majority Leader?

Oh, wait—that’s right, i think we can guess from the tenor of this email that since Harry Reid’s politics are (very slightly) left of center, he quite simply doesn’t count. Nope, we apparently need Mitt Romney.

Well, maybe we do—it’d be fun to see a pair of Mormons at utter and complete loggerheads, using every parliamentary trick in the book to stymie each other’s political plans. Maybe then we’d finally get people (and by “people” i’m including a lot of Mormons, too) to realize that we’re not as socially and politically monolithic a group as they think we are.

But back to the email, and another bit of ickiness: We are so excited to be a part of this time in history, to have this special opportunity to stand for liberty. Liberty? Huh? It seems to me that folks on both sides (most all sides, for that matter—let’s not forget the minor candidates) are fans of liberty. It’s not like we’ve got the Archangel Gabriel running against Benito Mussolini here, after all.

The absolute worst part, though, was the bit urging recipients to Please contact all your friends and family everywhere and ask them to join with us in this special day of fast. Ask them to contact all of their friends. Take this message to the churches.

Nuh-uh. No. Absolutely not. The Mormon church is, after all, very fond of its tax-exempt status in the United States, and (at least partly) as a result, this advice is simply against current church policy.

You can take such a message to other members of the church, but to take it to your entire congregation (which is what i get from to the churches)? Not in a Mormon church—if the bishop has been reading his leadership Handbook at all lately, you’ll get smacked down hard and quickly.

And so, on second thought, maybe i actually do wish people had done that—that would have been fun to see.

Marriage, or not?

Here’s a puzzler for everyone out there: The church insists that sexual expression is only acceptable within the bounds of marriage. However, there are a number of jurisdictions in the United States (among other countries) that offer not just marriages, but also civil unions—a legally binding parallel to marriage that is, effectively, the same thing. It’s primarily set up as a marriage-like institution for same-sex couples, but it’s also available as an option for mixed-gender couples.

Therefore, i wonder: Does the church accept civil unions for, say, a couple desiring to be baptized? I can’t easily find anything definitive on that, but i may just be looking in the wrong places. Anyone out there know?

Scary sex!

A discussion on the wonderful Keepapitchinin blog has brought to mind what, to my mind, is one of the most troubling aspects of Mormon culture: the degree to which sex, and particularly the fear of sex, consumes us.

Consider the following:

• Full-time missionaries aren’t allowed into the homes of single women* (which means that, say, a 70-year-old woman can’t serve lunch to the missionaries in her own home unless she goes through the trouble of getting a chaperone).
• Mixed-gender couples who are married but not to each other, as well as mixed-gender couples where one is married and the other is single, aren’t allowed to ride in the same car to and from church events or meetings. (And this one’s even enshrined into church policy in the Handbook!)
• A home teacher isn’t supposed to go into the home of a single sister he home teaches until the other home teacher is there, leading to the absurdity of guys waiting in their cars in the cold or stifling heat instead of going inside and being able to fellowship with the saints (and, in fact, the particular saint they’re assigned to fellowship as a priesthood responsibility).
• There is a strong social pressure on romantically involved couples to get engaged quickly, and to have a very short engagement, rather than taking time to get to know each other a bit better.
• Relatedly, there is pretty strong pressure brought onto young Mormons to get married pretty young (for the men, very soon after their return from a full-time mission), even to the point of being taught in general conferences.
• There is a strong social stigma attached to the sight of perfectly sexually innocent patches of skin, such as bare shoulders on women. (Or even prepubescent girls!)
• …And so on.

Basically, many (maybe most, but even i'm not that cynical most days) faithful Mormons seem to believe that nonmarital sex is something that human beings have no ability to resist, and therefore we have to build fences around the law—really, really horrible fences, in some cases.

I don't really get it, myself, but it's there—and i find it remarkably unhealthy. Not sure what to do about it, though. Thoughts?

* This rule wasn’t enforced in my mission when i was a full-time missionary twenty or so years ago, or at least all or most of us full-time missionaries in that mission weren’t aware of the rule. I’ve met others who served around the same time who report that it was an incredibly firm rule for them, though, and it’s been a pretty intensely-taught rule for the full-time missionaries in every mission i’ve lived in since then, too.

Reducing the impact on…something

So when the new church handbooks* came out a while back, there was a bit about how multiple members of individual families shouldn’t generally be given “significant” callings, so as to reduce the impact of those callings on families.

In my observations of the past few weeks, i’m thinking that the real reason for this policy suggestion is so that a ward doesn’t have to, all at once, come up with replacements for (to pick three callings utterly at random) the executive secretary, young women president, and beehive class president.

* Now titled Handbook, to contrast with the previous Church Handbook of Instructions, which replaced the earlier General Handbook of Instructions. I actually heard someone say at the time that the change of title to Handbook is evidence that the church is led by actual prophets. You know, there may well be evidences that this church is led by prophets, but i’m going to go out on a limb here and say that i’m pretty sure that that ain’t one of them.

Parent(s)?

Here’s a question: The church’s records have spots for each member’s mother and father. However, there are plenty of family units out there where children are legally the children of two mothers or two fathers. So how do the church’s records deal with this, given that they enforce mothers as female and fathers as male?

Through which lineage?

So priesthood lineages are recorded through the person who ordained a priesthood holder to the highest office they hold. That is, if someone’s a priest, the priesthood lineage goes through whoever ordained them a priest; if they’re an elder, it goes through whoever ordained them an elder; and so on.

However, since an apostle is an elder (no, seriously—it’s canon), why are apostles’ lineages traced through whoever ordained them apostles, rather than whoever ordained them elders (and also, most likely, conferred the Melchizedek priesthood on them)?

Painful histories

So it appears that members of the church continue to submit names for temple work that they’re not supposed to, particularly lists of victims of the Shoah. (Evidence for this: The first presidency sent out a letter to be read to the members of the church. Again.) This leads me to two questions:

1. Will the members of the church ever learn?
2. Are members of the church allowed to submit names of victims of the Shoah for temple work if those people are their direct ancestors?

A room full of men

Church disciplinary councils,* by their nature as something involving deliberations by a bishopric or stake presidency and high council,** consistently result in decisions pondered upon and delivered by men. It leads me to wonder: Is it just an accident of history that we exclude women from such decisions, or is there something else going on?

* I totally get why they’re not called church courts any more, but church disciplinary councils really does lack any punch, you know?

** Yes, i know there are other possible configurations—these are just the most widespread. My larger point remains valid for all possibilities, though.

Blessing gowns

Why, when babies are given a name and a blessing in font of the congregation, do we usually dress them in white? Yeah, church policy requires white clothing for baptisms and for temple weddings, but it’s not required for every ordinance, even for every saving ordinance (e.g., confirmations). So why do we dress babies in white for their blessings?

Ringing in the new year, Mormon style

The church’s current policies are weird about New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

First of all, fast Sundays are never to be held on New Year’s Day—the stake president is supposed to reschedule fast days for a different day when New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday (as it does this weekend). I mean, even Easter doesn’t get that treatment when it falls on the first Sunday of a month—so what’s so special about the first day of the year? I mean, one would think that church policy wouldn’t be assuming we need good hydration due to fighting off hangovers, you know?

Also, when new Year’s Eve falls on a Monday, New Year’s Eve parties can be held in church buildings. This is, as far as i can tell, the only exception to the rule that church activities are never to be held on a Monday night. I mean, we don’t even get to have a church activity on Monday night when Christmas Eve falls on a Monday, and you’d think you’d want to have some church-based observance of that day before you’d have one for New Year’s Eve, you know?

So what’s the big (religious) deal about New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day? I mean, really, i don’t get it.

Putting 5:8 odds on getting a firm answer on this

So the Mormon church has held a position against gambling for longer than any of us have been alive—and this is a radically consistent position against gambling in all of its forms, even for things like charity fundraiser raffles.

What i wonder: Is this position an outgrowth of canonical doctrine, or is this an outgrowth of Mormon cultural norms of somewhat over a century ago? If it’s the former, then i’d like to know the basis for it, since i haven’t been able to find it; if it’s the latter, then does that make it a position that’s subject to change at any point in time, should church leadership opt to do so? (And if not, why not?)

(Also, gambling isn’t part of the temple recommend questions, which makes for an interesting gap in its catalogue of orthopraxy.)

Anyway, just wondering about this particular one, and wondering if anyone out there has any insight on the subject.

Translation theory in action

Has anybody else noticed a trend away from the idea that English is a perfect object language for expressing religious items coming from the church’s translation department over the past half-century?

Consider German: Full-time missionaries used to (up until sometime after the mid-twentieth century) be referred to as Älteste+[last name], because Älteste is the usual translation of the English word Elder. This was even sillier than the English Elder+[nineteen-year-old’s last name], though, since "Älteste literally means oldest. Now, though, the church in Germany uses Elder+[last name] for full-time missionaries, which in my opinion works much better, since Elder doesn’t have a preexisting meaning in German. (And this change wasn’t just a change in general use—it even extended to the nametags.)

Also, starting sometime in the eighties or so, Endowment started slipping out of use as the German word for the temple endowment, replaced by the much more descriptive-in-German word Begabung.

Maybe there’s some hope for the higher-ups someday recognizing that English might need some translations of its own, or at least a move away from certain archaic-but-found-in-the-King-James-Version terms…