As I explained in my first post, I became disaffected with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2006, while I was a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. My wife (at the time) and I had been participating in one of the Spanish branches in the area. We had volunteered to be part of the Spanish branch since we had both served in Spanish-speaking missions and wanted to lend our service to the branch. Once my disaffection with the Church had taken root, however, we mutually decided that we could no longer lend support to the Spanish branch and decided to move our records to our corresponding English-speaking ward. Within a week or two, the bishop of our new ward called us into his office to size us up for potential callings. It was then that I frankly told him about my disaffection with the Church.
He was surprised, like a deer in headlights, but mentioned he would take my feelings into account (I suspect bishops are no longer surprised to hear news like this these days). The following Sunday after our chat with the bishop, my wife and I were called to be ward librarians. Before my disaffection, I had served in callings such as ward mission leader, scoutmaster, gospel doctrine instructor, and Young Men’s president, but never in a calling that didn’t require me to provide some form of “spiritual labor”. Ward librarian was a welcome change, as it seemed to me to be one of the least-demanding callings I could imagine, and did not require me to “bear my testimony” to anyone. Another thing I liked about it was that it allowed me to skip one of the hours of church meetings and hang out with my wife. In fact, her introduction to many of the historical problems with the Church came from me reading passages to her from some of the books that were available in the meetinghouse library.
I don’t remember much else from my time as a ward librarian, but one experience does stick out.
First, some background. Every Mormon ward has a few eccentrics, and most wards have at least one priesthood-bearing browbeater that is compelled to project his own interpretation of God’s intent upon everyone else. Such men are enamored with the authoritarianism inherent in the Church’s hierarchical pecking order. These are the men that follow the rules with exactness, and derive their self-worth from how closely they emulate the General Authorities. One such man was a member of the ward during my time as a ward librarian. We’ll call this man Bruce as an homage to his favorite Church leader, Bruce R. McConkie.
Bruce’s seven children were home-schooled by his wife, whom we will call Tracy. Tracy and her girls looked like they had just escaped a colony of Mormon fundamentalists. They all had very long, straight hair which was parted in the middle and tied into a ponytail in the back, and their dresses were homemade pieces that reminded me of potato sacks. Bruce and his boys always wore short-sleeved white shirts, black slacks, and ties. Tracy was usually seen with an infant swaddled in a home-made sling that she wore over her shoulder. During sacrament meetings, Bruce and Tracy’s girls looked after their younger siblings while their boys sat quietly, listening to the speakers.
After the third hour of church meetings one Sunday, as the members were returning their teaching materials, Bruce approached me at the half-door service window of the meetinghouse library. He told me that the work that I was doing was intended for women or new converts, and that a Melchizedek priesthood holder should not be working in the library. He said that it was my duty to encourage the bishop to give me a different calling so that I could exercise my priesthood authority in a manner that would be more beneficial to my family, and provide a better example to my son (who was only 3 years old at the time). He also said that people who get assigned to work in the library were spiritually lacking, or they wouldn’t have been given such a menial calling. His final words were to quote a passage in the Book of Mormon, which reads as follows:
And we did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence.
The Book of Mormon, Jacob 1:19
He said that if I did not “magnify my office” as a priesthood holder, my family would fall into spiritual disarray, and that their sins would be my responsibility. He then told me to “think about what he had said” and walked away.
Needless to say, I was appalled by Bruce’s display. I had never encountered a Mormon male so open in his contempt for “lesser men” in the priesthood. If similar thoughts were to have crossed the mind of a another Mormon man, I doubt he would have been so brash. Most Mormons tend to be passive-aggressive, as it is a feature of the culture.
Over the years, whenever I have been unlucky enough for my memory to stumble upon that experience with Bruce, I have wondered what it was that turned him into such a monster. My repeated conclusion is that he suffered from extreme insecurity. The Mormon hierarchical structure and the mantra of priesthood duty sets all men up for spiritual competitiveness. Since I now realize that the Church is really just a profit-seeking enterprise, it is no longer surprising to me that the male traditions would model the American corporation. Insubordination in the corporate world is punished by termination. In the Mormon Church, it is punished by priesthood bearers exercising spiritual dominion (and sometimes, excommunication).
At the risk of reigniting unpleasant memories of elders’ quorum instruction in the minds of my ex-Mormon readers, I would ask us to consider the following famous verses that Joseph Smith wrote as a guide for exercising priesthood power over others (emphasis added):
[T]he rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and …the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness…
We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion…
No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—
Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;
That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.
Doctrine and Covenants, Section 121, verses 36, 38-39, 41-44 (emphasis added)
In the emphasized portions of the scripture verses above, we can see the subtlety with which a “strong-arm” version of priesthood power can be ingrained in the hearts of some men in the Church. The exercise of “dominion” (or as I would call it, coercive power) is perfectly acceptable as long as it done under the guise of “righteousness.” And in fact, it isn’t possible to exercise priesthood power unless it is righteous. And sometimes, it’s okay to use “sharpness” (bullying tactics?) when reproving others, as long as it is prompted by the Holy Ghost. I have no doubt that Bruce was very familiar with this corrosive counsel from Joseph Smith.
When I was a Mormon, whenever we studied these verses in priesthood classes about “unrighteous dominion,” the emphasis was always on the unrighteous qualifier, without any questioning of the concept of dominion itself. Dominion was just an assumption. With all the emphasis on “love unfeigned,” we never questioned our male supremacy. And when we talked about the circumstances in which we might “reprove” others with “sharpness,” I can’t help but think that it gave self-righteous men like Bruce an excuse to be assholes.
