Chapter 2
A Suggested Solution
Although the church problem as outlined above
may seem complex and even overwhelming, l believe the general solution is
rather simple in concept, however complicated it may be in execution. Here is a
high-level treatment of the situation, sent to church headquarters as a
suggestion:
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November 1, 2019
Elder _________
50 East North Temple
Salt Lake City, Utah 84150
Subject: Member faith crises: a suggestion
It makes me sad to see people leaving the church for
potentially preventable reasons. The question then is, what are the options for
encouraging them to want to stay?
Recently, I have been studying the issue of LDS member faith
crises. Some materials available on the Internet include a June 2013 study
entitled "LDS Personal Faith Crisis," 140 pages in length, which you
have probably seen, which surveyed over 3000 people concerning their individual
faith crises. In that report, a sense of urgency was expressed as to the
importance of resolving this issue. At least two other similar survey studies
have been done on this topic, with one set of results reported in a published
book, and another set of results reported on an Internet site. I have also been
conducting my own informal survey, on a much smaller scale.
Representing a different collection
of faith crisis data, in August 2019 a lawsuit was brought in federal court
against the LDS church alleging that a large class of people were taught
throughout their young lives numerous aspects of early church history, which
aspects supposedly have now been shown to be incorrect. These allegedly
incorrect teachings are said to have amounted to a fraud, which has caused
numerous personal faith crises.
The case is named Gaddy vs COB (LDS). It began with a
75-page complaint which outlines the various claimed fraudulent teachings
concerning Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, etc. The case is only in the
beginning stages, but it does appear that the plaintiff and her highly
experienced attorney are well prepared to pursue this case as far as possible.
The attorney also considers herself to be among the defrauded members or
ex-members. No specific numbers are given concerning class size or the expected
jury-trial-approved award, but my own quick estimate based on outside data
would put the class size at about 26,000, with a potential total award in the
range of $250 million.
These kinds of continuing public activities seem to indicate
that this "faith crisis" issue will not soon go away, and so should probably
be taken seriously and directly addressed. The church statistical data from
2018 seem to show that the church is barely replacing those who die or leave
the church, achieving little net growth in active members.
I have been a church member all my life, born and raised in
Utah, and at age 78, I have spent most of my life studying various unique
aspects of the church, including many aspects of its early history. I have
written five books on those topics and have published three of them. I have two
law degrees but have spent most of my career as a computer consultant, spending
14 years overseas, which offered three different views of the foreign
operations of the church in Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Russia.
I consider many aspects of church history that are widely
objected to today to be based on a profound ignorance of the settings in which
many of these events took place. Uninformed and unrestrained
"presentism" is seen in almost every one of today's arguments. At the
same time, it is often very difficult to find out the exact truth on any
particular historical issue because there is so little fully complete and
reliable historical evidence available. Joseph Smith made a heroic effort to
record the relevant history, but, several generations later, it is not nearly
enough to settle all important historical questions that might arise. Most of
the data available is nearly all very old and of low quality, and so is a poor
basis for any kind of definitive judgment.
I believe several of these historical issues could indeed be
settled with broader and better-informed reviews of history, but, at the same
time, many more of those kinds of questions may never be fully answered using
only historical materials.
Move the discussion to a different kind of history?
Considering overall strategy, we could continue to struggle
mightily with these troublesome historical issues, often using nothing more
reliable than 200-year-old rumors which are poorly documented and therefore
poorly understood. However, I believe in many areas that quest for truth would
still prove to be unfruitful.
As an alternative to a constant and sweeping review of
innumerable church history topics, I suggest that the church put major
resources into creating a new and current "replacement" history,
completely positive and verifiable, which would show by its actions that today's
LDS church is indeed a copy of the church which Christ himself restored in the
meridian of time.
Pres.
Nelson has emphasized the need for more personal charitable activity, which is
part of the idea of ministering. My main suggestion is that the church simply
take some much longer steps down that same road of expanding charity, which was
considered the number one focus of the gospel among the early Christians. See 1
Cor. 13.
The essence of my suggestion is that the church consider
engaging in some large-scale, society-changing charitable activities as a
counterbalance to a less-than-perfect grip on 200-year-old church history,
rendering that old history much less relevant.
It
should not be too difficult to find suitable social problems in our nation that
obviously require enormous charitable efforts to resolve properly, since
governments have clearly failed. We have the abortion problem, the homelessness
problem, and the immigration and border problem, to name just a few of the more
widely recognized situations crying out for solutions. Slightly less obvious
are such problems as inner-city education failures, broken families, and social
violence. Those particular inner-city activities would also tend to counteract
claims of church racism, past or present. (Those claims of racism are
incorrect, but I doubt that any amount of public discourse will dispel those
claims without some impressive associated actions.)
Most
of the surveys mentioned above did not explicitly address this issue of
membership opinions of church charitable activity levels. That could have been
done through appropriately themed or focused survey questions, designed for
easy tabulation, but it was not done. However, I believe the free-form written
essay answers, and other similar materials from other sources, do give us some
valuable insights into important attitudes. First, we should recognize that
most of the respondents were from among the previously most serious and active
members -- many of the "best and brightest" -- as indicated by their
usually extensive church experience, including demanding positions held. They
typically expressed their seeming concern about various historical issues, like
so many other people, but I believe they were also, and more importantly,
expressing concerns that they were seeing far too little good societal effects,
too little "return on investment (ROI)" on church activity in
general, based on the extreme levels of individual inputs of time, energy,
commitment, and money. These resource factors have not been officially
quantified and made public by today's central church, but they certainly amount
to many tens of billions of dollars in volunteer payments and volunteer hours,
with relatively little to show for it in the realm of improvements to society.
For
example, Utah might logically be a social showcase of the best that is possible
in the nation and the world, but Utah is not actually very remarkable on many
important measures. Perhaps something besides standard secular government
methods is needed to achieve impressive excellence.
Based
on numerous comments about church financial matters in survey responses, I
believe that the underlying logic of many of those disappointed members who
were surveyed, however imprecisely that logic may have been stated, is that if
the gospel doesn't actively change the world for the better, as it was
prophesied it should do, then there must be something wrong with that church's
policies and practices. The original church that Christ restored in Jerusalem
certainly did go on to almost single-handedly create the cultural richness and
technological wonders of Western civilization. Perhaps all we need to do to
satisfy some of these serious Christian people is to more staunchly continue
that Christian tradition.
A
more perceptive membership?
I think we are also glimpsing another interesting, and
presumably unexpected problem where the constant reading and studying of the
scriptures by bright, highly educated, and committed members, which reading activity
is supposed to help keep them committed and doubt-free, can actually serve to
highlight the deficiencies in today's church behavior, when compared to the
foundational scriptures. This would likely be especially true concerning the
topic of charity and general issues of freedom, and could thus create cognitive
dissonance and raise doubts, even if only subconsciously, felt as a kind of
general unease.
For example, the Book of Mormon, especially in the Book of
Alma, vigorously teaches the vital importance of individual political freedom
through portraying at length the strenuous lifelong labors of Captain Moroni to
keep his religious compatriots free. And the first chapter of Alma describes an
extremely efficient system of charity and welfare where there is no expensive
central bureaucracy either for government or for church administration, leaving
all the resources of the population available to be used in individual
charitable acts.
Two remarkably enlightened kings, King Benjamin and King
Mosiah, paved the way for a new democratic system of judges, with an absolute
minimum of taxes and central administration, matched with the maximum of
personal freedom and responsibility. One might conclude that if the church is
not vigorously promoting individual freedom and individual charity, as did the
original church of Christ, which was actually historically preceded by
the practices described in the Book of Alma, then something must be wrong.
We also might notice that the saints described in the Book
of Alma, and the early saints after the life of Christ, had no requirement to
pay into any tithing system, and also built no chapels or temples, leaving
essentially all their personal resources available for individual acts of
charity, giving them the maximum religious freedom to do good.
I
am confident that most of the current history-based objections to the church's
legitimacy would disappear from public discussion if the church reverted to
those original arrangements established by the original apostles. Under those
ideal circumstances, the church grew at about 10% a year for hundreds of years,
presumably because of the sense of community and security the members provided
each other.
Church-driven
limitations on freedom and charity?
From
observations made during my international travels, apparently the church has
explicitly or implicitly made the determination that it must operate worldwide
based on the most restrictive conditions found anywhere, always seeking and
applying the lowest common denominator. For example, whatever modicum of individual
and church religious freedom is found in Russia must not be exceeded anywhere
else in the world, regardless of the vastly different conditions found in other
countries. In Russia there are legal limits on any potentially widespread
society-changing charity activities. Should the limits on individual religious
freedom found in Russia also apply in the United States, where freedom is
celebrated and churches are still essentially unconstrained? It seems difficult
to justify such widespread, self-imposed religious limitations, even if it
might offer some conveniences of consistency of administration to the central
church offices.
In other words, should the religious freedom problems of
10,000 members in restrictive countries control the behavior of 10,000,000
members in freer countries, where those freer members could do perhaps hundreds
of times more good with their freedom than they do now? As an extra
consideration, those good deeds done elsewhere might eventually indirectly help
the plight of members in restrictive countries.
I have more information on many of
these topics if that seems useful.
Sincerely yours,
Receipt
of the letter was acknowledged, but no substantive response was provided.
The
suggestion for a solution might have been said more succinctly:
1. Make sure that current church
teachings and activities conform with the actual gospel of Christ. It turns out
that this is actually very difficult to accomplish, especially after 200 years
of doctrinal drift.
2. Make sure that the members
actually understand the basic principles of the gospel, which I see as freedom,
charity, God as Creator, the nature of the heaven we are striving to reach
(since heavenly and earthly principles should be very much the same), what a
practical gospel community should look like, etc.
If church
members have a clear understanding of these basic philosophies, they can
largely compute for themselves what all the other sub-principles of the gospel
ought to be. Loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself are two good places
to start. A heavy emphasis on personal charity would help get us back into
conformity with New Testament and Book of Mormon teachings.
It seems to
be a current anti-Mormon fad to find some nit-picking historical issue and use
that to convince church members that that proves that the gospel is untrue. But
that seems to be the classic problem of not being able to see the forest for
the trees, allowing some small point, some shiny object, to obscure the big
picture. For example, rather than getting hung up on how many different ways
Joseph Smith described his first vision in writing, perhaps we should strive to
find out what was learned from that first vision and all other revelations
Joseph Smith received, certainly including the Book of Mormon. We have a large
mass of scriptures, but our understanding of the most important teachings of
the scriptures currently leaves much to be desired.
In my opinion, it is not enough for us to know
how to be nice to each other, although that is an important part of the gospel
for both children and adults. However, as adults who are managing their own
lives and helping others to manage their lives, it is very important to know
what an entire Gospel society, what a "Zion," would look like. Only
then can we make sure that our actions are always going in the right direction.
A second letter was drafted but never sent:
May 5, 2020
LDS First Presidency
50 East North Temple
Salt Lake City, Utah 84150
Subject: Member faith crises: a suggestion, part 2
Dear Brethren,
I recently sent a rough
book manuscript to a publisher, and during the resulting lull in activity it
occurred to me that this might be a good time to communicate with church
headquarters about an idea. This book is part of a project I want to carry out,
but I now realize that there might be other ways to do the project.
The current working
title of the book is "Is The Church As True As The Gospel? A Constitutional Approach." The main purpose
of the book is to point out that the LDS Church today has gradually become more
a reflection of Old Testament teachings than it is of New Testament
teachings. The Old Testament was focused
on paying tithing, supporting a professional priesthood, and attaining personal
purity, while the New Testament ended tithing and any related professional
priesthood, and was instead focused almost entirely on carrying out charitable
acts that improved the lives of individuals and of society – the Good Samaritan
focus. There was less concern about
static purity and more concern about active good works. Doing good works vigorously
may cause controversy, of course, but Christianity is not supposed to be
passive, in my view. I believe Christianity should be an active leaven to
society.
Many people may not be sophisticated
theologians who can describe and discuss these religious issues and the related
ideologies in detail, but a very large number of people nonetheless can sense
the strong practical difference between an Old Testament program and a New
Testament program. My book simply explains how we got here. I believe these
issues have a great deal to do with the missionary and retention success of the
church.
I find it interesting
that the new information that the LDS Church has at least $100 billion in
liquid investments is in the headlines at the same time I am finishing my book
that has to do with church policy drift. To my knowledge, the church has not
denied the essence of any of these reports, but rather has taken some steps to
try to defend its actions, perhaps as being needed preparation for some unclear
future events.
This new public
knowledge confirms and validates the book I have assembled, since the news
makes it clear what the Church's real priorities have been in recent decades – giving
charitable works less emphasis and banking the savings. Perhaps we could call
this "burying the talent," referring to the New Testament parable. If
church headquarters wanted to do something to change that image, perhaps we
could work together.
It seems to me that
this might be a good time to offer an alternative suggestion. As part of my publication project I have
intended to offer to manage a project which I have called the "Fund for
Zion." In my opinion, there are
many valuable things that $100 billion could have been spent for during the
last many decades, but those actions were not taken. What I am proposing is a separate fund to
actually do those things which the Church has chosen to avoid. For example, the
church has ended its adoption services, presumably for reasons of avoiding political
conflict, but I believe an independent non-church organization would not
experience the same political constraints.
I have in mind at least
six different "shovel-ready projects" of a charitable nature, at
various levels of research and definition, which would make a good beginning in
solving a few important social problems that can be easily identified
today. Each of these projects needs some
seed money to get them started and to introduce and verify some new concepts.
The projects could then proceed autonomously and independently in many cases.
Some project examples
1. An abortion/adoption/foster-care
project. In my book, I describe in some detail an idea for a demonstration charitable
project to deal with the social issues of abortion and adoption on a fairly
large scale. I believe the first step in
the project would be to get long-term control of the development of perhaps
1200 contiguous acres of suitable undeveloped ground to be used for housing,
schools, work experience opportunities, etc., that could be used to support
many different aspects of the abortion/adoption project. I am guessing that it would take about $20
million to get the necessary control of that land so that long-term plans could
then be made and carried out. The
general idea would be to end up with a facility which could support about 20,000
orphans or foster-care kids somewhere in central Utah. The total long-term cost
to develop all the facilities might be in the $2 billion range.
2. A genealogy
project. I have actually spent the most
research time on a genealogy-related project which would have the goal of
completing the United States within two years and the entire world within 10
years. Enormous amounts of money and
labor have been applied to the genealogy activity already, but the levels of
duplication and inefficiency are astronomical.
A change in concept and technology would make possible the timeframes I
mentioned without any more effort or money being applied than is available
now. I hold two software patents whose
purpose it is to demonstrate the feasibility of what I have just described. Most
technical aspects have been tested already, but a few million dollars could be
used to further prove all practical concepts and methods, including user
acceptance. My calculations are that $70 million would be required to finish
all the basic genealogy for the United States up to about 1940, and that data
product should be valuable enough as a starting place, if handled properly, to
make possible completing the processing of all records available for the rest
of the world.
3. A government
integrity project. I have observed
through my own sad experiences (described in my book) that the legal and
judicial system in the state of Utah is not obviously much better than that in
any other state of the Union. If Utah is
supposed to represent "Zion," then one of the elements of
"Zion" is to have an honest and dependable government administration,
something which is not always present in the state of Utah. It seems to me it would be very useful to
have an ongoing review and evaluation of most important government and judicial
opinions and actions, pointing out the major biases and prejudices that exist in
Utah as much as anywhere else. This kind of monitoring of governments is
something which news organizations only do on a very sporadic basis. Perhaps a
$5 million study project could make major progress in this area.
4. A
gathering/migration project. One look at the United States southern border
presents a whole list of social problems that need attention – unaccompanied
minors, economic refugees, health problems, etc. There are numerous opportunities for
charitable activities to help with all the many problems that are highlighted
at the border, many of which the state and federal governments are poorly
prepared to deal with. As one
interesting example, there are people leaving from Venezuela, Honduras,
Guatemala, etc., to try to reach the United States. In many cases those people risk their lives
many times over using underground-style travel methods while also still paying
out enough money to actually be provided safe and easy passage out of their
Third World difficulties. One
interesting solution, among many, would be to help some of these people
relocate to Europe where they would be well received as having much closer
values and social ties to the local society than do the majority of the Muslim
immigrants who have been flooding Europe and causing many problems. After some further education and experience,
those same Hispanic people might be able to move in a logical progression to
the United States, if that is their goal.
They often have the funds to be able to move from their unpleasant homes
to a better place, but they need some guidance and advance preparations to make
the transitions pleasant and productive. A few million dollars would go a long
way to research and set up practical systems to help these people.
5. An education
project. There are many ways in which
the current, mostly government-controlled education systems are failing the
students and the rest of society. We
have the interesting situation where large local companies are willing to
invest money in school systems to improve the educational levels of the
students those schools produce, but there does not appear to be any really
satisfactory place to invest that money effectively. At the same time, the homeschool effort in
Utah is doing great things, largely driven by LDS mothers with very high goals
and expectations for their children, pointing out that the possibilities for improvement
of the state's education systems are numerous. A few million dollars would
allow research and practical systems to be set up to help students and families
and companies.
6. A health/pension demonstration
project. It appears that the New Testament program of individual charitable
works amounted to a complete social insurance system for church members and
their friends, but without all the rigidity, unfairness, inefficiency, coerciveness,
and waste of the typical government tax-and-spend welfare system. That early
New Testament charitable system, or any other charitable system, can be up to
five times more efficient than any government program could ever be, meaning
that real needs can be met quickly and flexibly as they arise. Today, the lion's
share of government budgets, and therefore nearly all political conflict,
relates to health care, pensions, and other welfare matters, but a secular
government is usually poorly prepared to administer such programs well and
wisely. For political reasons, governments almost always promise more than they
can deliver, typically eventually bankrupting those systems. Those excessive
government promises also tend to result in lowering the growth rate of their population
below replacement value. Citizens might wonder why they should bother with
raising children of their own to care for them in their old age when the
government has promised to always take care of them (by taxing other peoples'
children). If everyone follows that logic, then the number of children raised
to adulthood drops drastically. This tendency of an overreaching government to
initiate a society death spiral through welfare systems seems to be too well-hidden
for most people to recognize. A family-oriented, pro-life church might consider
advocating strongly against some of our society's current anti-family,
anti-life policies.
These few ideas barely
begin to deal with the many major problems which are in the world and which
need attention, for church members, and for others as well. Also, I'm quite confident that there are many
good people in the world, regardless of their church affiliation, who would
help with some of these projects if it was clear to them that they were getting
a good value for the money they were contributing.
If any of these ideas
seem like useful topics for discussion, I hope you will let me know.
Sincerely yours,
