By Candice Wendt
My ward and stake keep hammering down on my 12-year-old son that boys serving missions is a mandate from God. But he’s not buying it. There are all kinds of problematic things going on I could unpack here, but for the moment, I’ll focus on just one obstacle. As we have attended our ward, which has eight proselyting missionaries assigned to it, my son has gotten the impression that missionaries’ efforts to build community are basically fruitless. He witnesses that church is a revolving door with people entering and exiting as they realize we’re not as communitarian as we seemed.
We attend church in the heart of Montreal. Our mission is one of the highest baptizing missions in the world, partly because our city welcomes a large portion of Canada’s refugees and immigrants. For many who are baptized, missionaries offer social respite. At testimony meetings, converts often thank missionaries for being their friends. But life as a member offers relatively little social time or enjoyment. Being in the ward is mostly about passive listening and being told to follow leaders and go to the temple. Social events are few, and often bomb, like when our ward Christmas party dinner was two hours late and all the food ran out before 50 people had eaten anything. You’re more likely to get asked to clean our very dirty building than be asked to dinner. Most converts stop coming after a few weeks or months.
LDS church community hasn’t always been this way. I remember the strong spirit of togetherness at homemaking meetings during my childhood in the western US. I recall the sound of sewing machines, the smell of bread baking, and the pleasure of watching women laughing together. I ran around the building during those gatherings, and later gained my first experiences babysitting so young moms could attend. I remember Halloween parties that were genuinely fun for all ages. At one, my bishopric performed a comedy skit that involved them wearing tutus. Wards worked like caring extended families. Some of this is childhood nostalgia, but some of it is cold hard reality. Community life is breaking down all over the world, and the church has been going along with this tide instead of resisting it.
The institutional church has long been taking an insidious turn away from community and toward covenants as its highest value. General leaders have cut ward budgets and removed, downsized, and deemphasized the programming that once fostered friendships, celebrated accomplishments, and created social fun.
Once as a teen, I displayed an appliqué quilt I made and a history of my great grandfather I transcribed at my ward’s new beginnings meeting. Other girls also shared. We felt admired and loved by the community. My daughter has no such opportunities for recognition.
When I got married and was required to leave my BYU singles’ ward, I was suddenly cut off from friends I loved and from fun social ward routines. I felt betrayed as I realized it seemed the church had made the singles’ ward so socially rewarding to get me married in the temple, then dumped me into an isolated life once their objective was fulfilled. The sudden loss of support contributed to my mental health plummeting as I had a baby and completed a master’s degree over the next two years.
Leaders are treating temple covenants as the sole thing we need to access faith and happiness. Some older members are on board with this. Maybe this is because older people are biased (including general authorities); they no longer have pressing developmental and social needs themselves, and their thoughts are turned toward death and comforting hopes of an afterlife.
One huge problem with the exchange of covenants for community is that temples do not tend to needs for connection. The temple is not better for me than scrolling on a cell phone in the sense that both are downloads of information while I’m essentially in isolation. The temple is not a place to talk or connect. In the celestial room, we may whisper awkwardly or feel we’re on display under bright lights. The ordinances have only become more devoid of interaction over time.
Covenants becoming the heart of religious life alienates members who have concerns about the temple. Some members hold the things Joseph Smith brought about toward the end of his life in suspicion due to his abusive, emotionally numb and compulsive behaviors during that period of time (i.e.. the nightmarish details of polygamy). There are many other fraught questions surrounding the temple, such as the ethics of worthiness interviews and entrance requirements. Many younger members are not confident ordinances should be at the center of living the gospel, or whether God actually needs them. For some, the focus on helping the dead feels irrelevant and misdirected when there are so many living people who need love and attention.
Social disconnection plus hope of a future life with God is not an equation for happiness. We need pleasurable community experiences to rejoice in the gospel and enact its meanings fully. Enjoyment is a blend of relationships, memories, and pleasure (e.g. eating, recreating, having fun; see this interview with Arthur Brooks about happiness from the Ten Percent Happier Podcast). Such experiences are a vital element of long-term happiness.To be happy in our church life, we need to eat with and play with people, make friends, and create memories together.
At a lecture at McGill University last October, philosopher Mark Wrathall discussed how from a phenomenological perspective, faith is not belief (such as in theology, afterlife structures, etc.), but loving and compassionate relations and community building. Faith itself works in a non-cognitive way, it is expressed and grown through community practices. I came away from this lecture with a strong recognition that what matters most to me about about my religious life is how it helps me live a better life now, not how it makes me think or feel differently about the possibility of an afterlife, something which is inaccessible, mysterious, and in many ways completely irrelevant to me now.
Jesus lived a community and relationship-centered life. He spent most of his time conversing, eating with people, connecting with groups, and initiating and nurturing friendships. Disagreement and stretching the limits of his friends’ thinking about themselves and their relationships was his continual mode and venture. Deep levels of emotional closeness seem to have been important to him. He did not live a temple-centered life; he lived a love and humanity-centered life. Following Jesus means subversively fostering community, friendship and love, even when the church itself has ceased to value these things.
I recently told my son after an uncomfortable discussion in Young Men’s that he’ll never receive pressure or guilt from me. I told him I know he is going to be a wonderful person whether he chooses to serve a mission or not, whether he marries in the temple or not, and whether he develops any kind of faith or not. He hugged me and said, “I’m so happy we can talk about these things.” The covenant-obsessed version of the church is not proving loving, relational or supportive enough for my caring children or their exceptional peers. They deserve so much better. Like so many millennial moms around me, you can plan on me resisting the tide and putting love and connection first.
Candice Wendt is a staff member of McGill University’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and a contributing editor at Wayfare. She is married to the psychology scholar Dennis Wendt and they are raising two strong-willed, artistic, French-speaking teens together.
Many excellent examples in this article. While I don’t relate to the overall tenor of the article, I do believe that much, much more can be/should be done to promote community and relationship-building within local wards. Our ward (stake?) did away with the Activities Chairman calling, and we subsequently have one or two activities a year, which is usually foisted on the already-busy Relief Society. Much research shows that people stay connected to a religious faith primarily because of bonds to the community, so let’s do more to build and strengthen those bonds.
Yes, I appreciate this point that “people stay connected to a religious faith primarily because of bonds to the community.” This post was inspired partly by a conversation with a GenZ friend (younger than me) who has left church. Among other things, they said that the “entry fees” of cognitive dissonance and belonging to an organization with what many consider to be out-of-date and harmful policies are a high cost that is no longer worth paying for many younger people when the social benefits of church keep decreasing over time. Seems to me social disintegration might be a big reason we’re bleeding younger and middle aged members.
This “foisting” is one reason I have stepped away from participation in my mid-50s. I endured three years in a Relief Society Presidency having to also coordinate all the activities (in addition to my full time job running a business), and then we moved and they immediately offered me a calling in charge of the Relief Society activities group. Never again. I said I’d need to think about it, and without waiting for me to reply they assumed I agreed, and I started getting “welcome” messages to the committee. The morning they were about to announce this calling, I texted right before the meeting to decline.
No matter how much you give, it is never truly appreciated, and it’s never enough, and it’s always assumed that every maybe is a yes. I’m done being used up.
I hear you. A few years ago I was asked to serve in YW. I was a new immigrant with all kinds of extra tasks in my life. I hesitated and expressed a lot of doubt. Explained I couldn’t attend the Wed. night mtgs. The spiritual pressure to do good and be a mentor was put on me even after that. I reluctantly accepted and resentfully served.
A lot of my independent thinking LDS friends are still try to build community at church, in fact they say that is the thing they value most at church, rather than the teachings or ordinances, etc., not that they think community is going awesome there. Others have noted community breaking down is what leads them to stop attending. The lack of being seen and appreciated for the efforts to build community is a big problem. Everyone needs to be seen and loved for who they are and thanked for what they contribute.
Wonderful points!
Your description of the sudden loss of support while trying to navigate motherhood struck home. Even in the heart of Utah, surrounded by members, that was rough. I never felt so abandoned and brushed off as when I was struggling after becoming a first-time mom. It truly felt like a bait-and-switch. The church had gotten what it wanted out of me (free labor and a brand new future tithe payer in my arms), so now I didn’t matter anymore. I was hurting in every way, and nobody seemed to care – they just kept asking me to provide more free labor for the church (oh, you’re sad? have you tried serving more?)
Mothers can’t create, much less hold up, a community if they’re barely holding themselves together. Economic realities + changing times + a lack of support = women’s ability to make that community has changed. We simply cannot do what our mothers did, and obviously the men running the church are loth to pick up that slack. We can’t do it, so it doesn’t get done.
I think you’re spot-on. It feels like the church is being run by old men who are only worried about their status in the afterlife. They seem obsessed with reaching the tippy-top of the pile of souls, and they don’t care who gets squashed along their way. Nelson’s “think celestial” talk was completely devoid of the concept of friend or neighbor relationships, or even extended family relationships. He seemed solely concerned with the male relationship to sexual partners (wives) and/or sexual products (children).. The people men will rule over in the Celestial Kingdom. (Brigham Young was more direct, saying each man was going to be a “king and lawgiver” over his wives and children). It’s difficult to have any kind of real relationship with people you’re ruling over.
I loved your statement that “did not live a temple-centered life; he lived a love and humanity-centered life.” That’s something I can do. I can no longer meet the expectations of the church. I tried and I simply couldn’t hack the never-ending demands – it wasn’t sustainable. But I’ve still got some love left in me yet. Maybe I can still just share it, and that will be enough.
Thanks for this thoughtful and supportive response! I resonate a lot with your second paragraph here. One reason why the problems are so evident here in Montreal is because most women work full time (as I know is increasingly the case throughout the US too). The women used to all kinds of stuff to hold the community together that men did not do. An example is that no one is free to clean the building or wants to spend their one true day off doing that for free in a society in which almost all adults are working full time. Used to be the stay at home moms cleaned things up.
There are so many people looking for work (my best friend as a child had a dad that provided for their family maintaining church buildings) and the same people show up week after week to clean. I would love to do a flower or shrub trimming twice a year … even when I hired a house cleaner there was plenty to clean…the weekly expectation is one more activity where we aren’t creating community connections
I resonate with all of this. When I became a mother I thought a lot about how different this world would be if it catered to the needs of young moms. It would be a compassionate, inclusive society for all, really. I also tried and felt like I could never measure up to the checklist of things church leaders tell us to do. I still attend, but I would say I’m at church in body, not in spirit.
I appreciate this post very much. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the supportive response and for sharing 🙂
The church is now a large corporation that is real estate focused, hence the building of so many temples when membership numbers are actually declining. Putting the temples in places with few members defies logic, except as an investment. The focus that the executive leaders are putting on making temple covenants and to keep attending the temple, I believe, is an attempt to justify the real estate arm of the corporation. Young people need to know ahead of time that Think Celestial is a catchphrase to get them to the temple. However, youth leaders need to ensure that the youth understand that the ultimate goal of the temple is still eternal polygamy, and to be educated on what that means for them. Hopefully, doing so will shift the focus from being on the temple, to being a community as you’ve described, again.
I hear you. The temple announcements used to be exciting to me in the 90s and early 2000s when I had a sense that the church really was growing. But now, all the temple announcements feel like a weird mirage in North America, where so many of us are grieving over the families who left our communities.
And I agree that eternal polygamy is still a noxious weed to grapple with. I taught my 15 year old daughter all my honest thoughts about it instead of trying to protect it at all. I’m hoping girls are less indoctrinated today, for me, I suffered a lot of spiritual abuse and existential dread due to it.
I totally agree that making the temple (and covenants) the center of everything is making it harder for people to stay connected, because the temple is quiet, non social and often awkward (and lots of people don’t go at all). I even feel a difference between my family ward twenty years ago when I was newly married and how disconnected wards seem to be now, all on the same town. I don’t want to go back to the 80s in almost any way, but the ward social activities were much more of a glue back then. I was born in ’81 and the church makes up so much of my core childhood memories. I agree it’s been a detrimental switch to go from road shows and fellowshipping to just building more and more temples.
Yes, exactly, thanks for your support, Abby
This is a spot-on critique of current church culture. I am so glad you articulated it for us. Your comment about Jesus and the temple reminded me that he actually abhorred and railed against how the temple was used and those who spent all their time there rather than helping those in poverty around them.
A good friend of mine is Greek Orthodox, a convert to that faith and recently invited me to a service. It was beautiful and you could easily tell it was more about worship and connection to the divine than any Sacrament meeting I had ever attended. So full of ritual! And after the service, everyone was invited to lunch. It is a small congregation and most of them are related but it was the community-feel I had always wished for: each family takes turns feeding the whole congregation each week (the church will help pay for food if you are unable). Breaking bread together on a weekly basis is an incredibly impactful way to foster community. Meanwhile, our ward has a linger longer every other month and despite living here 7 years, we have no one to sit with and I just want to cut out early. Something is definitely missing.
Such interfaith examples are powerful. Thanks for your supportive thoughts!
I heartily endorse this post with one exception: the statement that older people are biased. no longer have pressing social needs, and have turned their thoughts toward death. This may be true of certain General Authorities, but it is certainly not true of my husband and me, who would both qualify as “older.” We too have noticed and mourned this loss of community and feel that it is slowly (or maybe not so slowly) destroying the church. If anything, I think the loss of community is even more noticeable and more painful for those of us who grew up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. In many wards. older members, especially those who are single, widowed, or divorced, suffer intensely from social isolation and loss of community, perhaps even more than any other demographic group. But this isn’t a contest for who is hurt most by this development; we’re all hurt by it, individually and collectively.
I’m so sorry this came across as insensitive, should have thought of that. Makes total sense there is a huge spectrum of older peoples’ thoughts, and many thoughtful older people who value sociality in ways I can’t even appreciate. I was basically trying to describe my perception of leaders and certain families where there is a big generational gap– such as boomer parents who love the church’s direction and go to the temple every day, and millennials who don’t understand this and don’t value the temple nearly as much and feel betrayed. I’m seeing this happening, but surely there is such a diversity of dynamics in families.
As an older member, I agree with Ganie. I think it is more that top leaders who meet several times a week, do not feel any social isolation, so they are totally out of touch with the majority of members and how they feel. For top leaders who devote their retirement to the church, the church is still giving them plenty of social contact. And I know some of the kind of boomers that Candice is talking about, and I think their overboard devotion to the church is an attempt at social connection. Going to the temple at least is out of the house and around people, even if it is lousy social contact. It is at least SOME contact. Perhaps if they had the kind of church support my grandmother had from church, they would not be so temple overboard. My grandmother had a family home evening group of seniors that met for supper and FHE every week and it was who she leaned on most when her husband died and as a widow. The church doesn’t bother organizing such things for seniors anymore.
These comments are so insightful, thank you. I wonder if some older members feel a lot more grief over the community life they once had than I do.
This trend toward covenant instead of community has been going on for about 40 years now. The first step was correlation, when women lost Relief Society. It was no longer run or controlled by women, so it quickly stopped meeting women’s needs. That was back in 1970, and most of you will not even remember what Relief Society was even like. The next big step was moving the meeting to Sunday. Primary was no longer about fun, and became all about reverence. There is just so much that was suddenly not appropriate for doing on the sabbath. Relief Society was the same way. We could no longer have work meetings where we sat around and quilted all afternoon while the children were in playpens behind their mothers or running wild through the building. We couldn’t have the mini classes where we broke into small groups and went into eight different classrooms to work on skills we wanted to learn. Having one big meeting a week, instead of two Sunday and three during the week, cut way down on visiting time before and after meetings. Work meeting in the evenings just did not work. Women with families didn’t really want to be away from family in the evenings and there just wasn’t time to the kinds of activities of daytime activities. So, instead of getting both SAH mothers and working mothers to one work meeting, they actually lost attendance. The next thing the church did was cut back on activities. Then they demanded that all activities have a priesthood purpose. Trying to make an activity spiritual takes all fun out of it, and Mormons are bad about creating an actual spiritual environment. So, activities just became stuffy and boring. As people quit attending, they had fewer and fewer, and since it is pulling teeth to get people to even come, wards saw little purpose in even having them. It become a vicious cycle with the fewer activities, the less people feel connected and they feel less reason to attend, so the church provides even fewer activities.
Thank you so much for sharing this detailed, insightful perspective that includes elements of this trend I wasnt aware of. I sense this cycle.
Amen. I was reading a book on the history of Relief Society and I was super surprised that the Relief Society functioned to train pioneer sisters essentially as social workers in the the 1900s or so in Utah to look out for the needs of the families and assist families. This is not the exact resource I used, but is a summary of Relief Society’s extensive social work and educational efforts to help families.
https://rsc.byu.edu/firm-foundation/relief-society-educational-social-welfare-work-1900-1929
It took my breath away that the R.S. program could be that powerful and be that much of a force for good. Sisters are still heavily involved in education, social work, and other efforts – but that is in some instances despite, not because of church affiliation.
Wow, this is interesting
During President Nelson’s appearance before congress, they alleged that mission expenses were not tax-deductible charitable donations because they are a rite of passage. Nelson defended they were not a rite of passage, citing that he did not go and he is now an apostle (at the time of his appearance). In his book, he said the committee softened and accept this and allowed tscc to continue making mission expenses as tax deductible, both for family of the missionary and for tscc (they claim to subsidize).
Yet Bednar, and Bednar junior (Kevin Pearson) keep making statements that boys committed to serving a mission when they got baptized, making it a rite of passage as a requirement of membership. If they don’t behave and change this rhetoric they, and the members will owe a substantial amount of taxes.
If the SCMC reads this, feel free to stop these idiots from saying things as doctrine that is antithetical to the plan of salvation and free agency. Not only because it is immoral and wrong, but out of preserving that nice little nest egg you have built up there.
Justin, thank you so much for bringing up this. This story and the inconsistency are fascinating. I love this argument. There has been a recent shift. Growing up in the 90s, there was high pressure for boys to serve. But I remember them being encouraged to pray about it. It wasn’t laid put as an essential step to meet God’s expectations. We mostly just sensed those who didn’t go would have less belonging or status at church later, might be stigmatized. My son has been at meetings where he’s been told there is no choice, that God and church have already essentially chosen the one good path for him. The only way he’ll really be loved and accepted by church leaders ir valued in the community. These tactics are a dreadful mismatch for 12 year olds who are often just barely starting to ponder whether the idea of God seems viable or not to
them. Just this week at work I read the Springtide institute’s 2023 research report on teen and YA spirituality in the US and it talked all about meeting GenZ kids where they are at, listening carefully and letting them take the lead in shaping their beliefs, faith and spiritual path. We’re doing it so backwards with trying to motivate them with fear, authority, and shame.
I think that too many young men were using the personal revelation card as a way to get out of going on missions. “I prayed about it and god told me that a mission isn’t right for me.” I’m not casting aspersions on anyone who used that approach to let their parents and church leaders down easy. Missions are a huge sacrifice of time during a critical growth period and of money, both the outlay and the loss of earnings. Nobody should go on a mission unless they’re passionate about it.
So I see this as church cracking down on mission avoidance, just as they cracked down on women spending the day in workout clothing to avoid wearing garments.
That could make sense. I agree that if the desire is not there, whether they pray about it or not, it is not the right thing and we should lay off. I think a lot of them really do pray about it and feel that way though. Raising my kids in a very secular and anti-religious city/greater culture, and a high pressure ward is difficult. At one point my daughter was having an anxiety attack in the church hall when a priesthood leader was pressuring her to meet with him. In front of the leader, I said “Everything at church is extra-curricular. You do the things that you want to do, and you don’t do the things you don’t want to do. Just tell him no if you don’t want to meet.” I realized this was so different than how I was raised with church being treated as something essential for being alive and belonging in the family.
In line with this, for me, the more freedom I feel I have in my choices regarding church things, the more engaged I become in church overall.
The opposite is true as well, when I feel forced I disengage.
I have worked hard to let my kids know that church is voluntary and it shouldn’t make us feel panic.
I agree. When you aren’t allowed to say “no” there is no real “yes”. I realized this a number of years ago with choir. I realized that the “should” I had in my mind related to choir were actually obscuring the joy and fun I had in participating in choir. Giving myself more permission to attend when I had capacity and miss it without guilt when I didn’t made a real difference.
I have noticed the trend of decreasing socialization in church as well. I wondered why we would purposely reduce the hours we spend together. Now that my children are mostly grown, I have more paying work and give a lot less free labor to the church. And I’m tired and mostly don’t feel like going to the social opportunities that people do organize (in or out of the church). I know I could make more of an effort to go to the activities, but I just don’t feel like it, so I do accept some responsibility for fraying social connections at church.
I agree that a big part of the reason for the decreasing social connections (which people have identified in comments and in the article) is more time spent working-especially by women. I spent a crazy number of hours managing a political campaign for 11 months while also working part-time at a different job and trying to manage my household. I have felt like less time at church activities has given me more time to go out into the world and make a difference without feeling like I’m neglecting church responsibilities.
I agree with many of the points made in this post, I am just choosing to look at this as an opportunity to be in communion with the wider community. This, naturally, will be more difficult if the definition of belonging becomes making certain covenants in very specific ways/places, etc. My own meanings behind all this probably has more to do with the phase of life I’m in than anything.
I resonate with this too, Vicki, I’ve lost my interest in many of the events that still happen and I contribute in that way. There are certain benefits for many members for having looser church connectedness. And I can see how many people could thrive in having more time and space to form their own community connections and explore things outside the church. It makes sense to me that parents still the thick of raising younger kids who are facing social and mental health issues would be more troubled by the lack of social support. The young and vulnerable and people who have a harder time being liked, included and seen in society will certain suffer more than those who are likeable and talented and have resources for creating circles of friends.
I agree with a lot of this. I don’t understand why they have gutted ward budgets so much that it’s impossible to plan fun activities unless leaders pay out of pocket. Buildings are dirty and there’s nothing fun for my kids to invite friends to. I don’t feel happy when I hear Pres Nelson like I did with Hinckley or Monson. Nelson just comes off as cold and angry to me. When I hear “think celestial” it makes me think of Joseph Smith and the Happiness Letter, which makes my heart sink. The temple was always weird and scary to me. I tried for many hours to make it make sense but it never clicked for me and has been a continuing source of anxiety. Leaders now aren’t leaving room for nuanced members. It’s either get with the program or get out.
Thanks for your support and these honest feelings! I love this point about the icky and manipulative happiness letter– I can see the parallels. I feel for your experience in the temple. Love the way you say “leaders aren’t leaving room for nuanced members.” We really need that space, we claim it even though they don’t grant it.
So many points to think about from this article. I can’t help but feel that something is “off” in the Church structure at present. I think there are a number of dynamics at work: current social structures and social media, current Church culture being driven from the top down, current Church policies and financial priorities and more. I don’t think the early saints would have survived as we are presently organized.
Yes, the top down power structure is a huge problem. From my experiences learning about and working with young peoples’ spirituality, I see that young people need to inform the direction we take and how we make the world a better place. Very old male people having all the decision making power leaves an enormous generational gap, many blind spots, and unchecked space for ego to reign. The leaders don’t want us to perceive them this way, but they are indeed out of touch with what sincere and valid social platforms, causes, and spiritual desires young people have today in our changing world.
Thank you so much for this article, Candice. You’ve articulated things that have very much been troubling me about the church. A phrase from D&C 121:46 keeps haunting me—“without compulsory means.” I’ve realized through the years how much the church has pressured me to do things which have ultimately caused me real pain. To choose to serve a mission when the alternative is basically damnation and potentially becoming a social pariah is not a choice. To choose to go through the temple when the alternative is losing your family is not a choice. In fact I think both these perspectives are spiritually abusive—and yet they very much persist from the highest pulpit of our institution. I’m so tired of “musts”.
A sister in my ward recently said something that resonates with me as true: “Just because something has helped you become a better disciple of Christ doesn’t necessarily mean that same thing will work for someone else.” I really wish we could share that perspective when it comes to missions, covenants, and especially the temple. But instead we’re pushed toward those things through compulsory means.
I agree, the status quo on how we treat boys and men surrounding missions has been abusive and a non-choice for a long time. I’m sorry you went through that. I now feel immense guilt for pressuring male relatives to go on missions when I was a young adult. I didn’t know what I was doing or what was really going on– mental health issues, lack of testimony, etc. I couldn’t recognize the spiritual abuse they were faced with. It disgusts me our community was such that what motivated me most was that I knew that if they didn’t go, our social capitol and image as a family would go down. It’s like living as a sister in a Jane Austen movie– one family member slips from the social norms, and everyone is afraid of being treated as outcasts from society, not having as high a standing, etc.
I appreciate this sister’s thoughts too. As I have approached middle age and my peers have gained life experience and really tough things and are starting to talk about them more, I find myself supporting a lot of people who do not have a positive experience in the the temple. Some find it confusing, cult-like, too passive and boring, or they find themselves criticizing and deconstructing everything instead of feeling closer to God. I think these experiences are valid. I think the best spiritual practices are ones that we co-create with God. Some faith groups support young people in creating rituals, whether for themselves or the group. The temple is imposed on us as something we’re highly pressured to value and find sacred. Psychologically, this pressure alone is enough to empty the experience of a lot of its meaning because we feel like we aren’t given a respectful choice about where we find peace and sacred moments, something that is highly personal.
I resonate with this piece! (I am also an old person, nearly 69.)
There is a shift happening. I find it exciting. We are moving away from a “worthiness”, hierarchal mindset to an open one of mutual support–the Zion mindset, as several LDS scholars have written about. It will take awhile, but we’re moving there. Attempts to focus members’ attention to lists and obedience checks will ultimately be displaced by a vision of joy and confidence in a Zion community where the gospel flows from home to home “without compulsory means.”
Beautiful words, I share this vision and hope, and I believe many of the young people of the church do also. I personally have had old rusty frameworks undone and rebuilt in better ways than ever before by scholarly work by the Givens and by Adam Miller as well as many others. All Things New esp. blew me away and healed my heart and gave me a different vision of God and what the gospel will mean for me and others in the future. We have remarkably inspired thinkers and visionaries among us!
Givens and Miller and other writers give me hope for the future. Faith Matters has been a lifeline for me’
Thank you for this thoughtful piece which highlights the importance of community. I wonder if the loss of community has been accelerated by the pandemic. I found that the isolation during COVID really changed the nature of congregational worship and my sense of connection to the larger Latter-day Saints community. I find myself just seeing the beginnings of these connections resurfacing now.
What do you think can be done to ignite the fire of community again at the institutional and the personal levels?
Thanks, Cathy! I think most people would agree LDS community deteriorated during the pandemic, that’s a good point.
I think the problem is not the efforts of members, but the church institution. Here are things the church can do. Some of this is low hanging fruit and some of this is sky high dreaming:
• Give wards bigger budgets and more flexibility and license to do things according to their local needs
• Revamp the youth program. Youth leaders should be the mentors that support kids in their church based goals and projects, this doesn’t work well for most parent-child relationships. We should hold events again that recognized youth achievements. Activities should have more fun and social value, less priesthood emphasis sometimes.
• Bring back 3 hour church for the wards who want it/need it, like ours. Or wards could have a 3rd hour that is a social hour.
• Gender equality and women being ordained would help immensely. Women have many talents for community building that get squashed and are not supported at church even if they try to step up. Women simply can’t reach their potential to make contributions at church with our current structures and policies.
• Give much of the reigns and decision making power on what direction the church takes, how it seeks to make the world a better place, and what values it stands on to the young people of the church and common members. Let’s do things by common consent, not by adherence to top leaders who sit in their callings to end of life. This just isn’t working. GenZs have little willingness to take part in orgs that don’t align with their values, don’t listen to them.
• Personally, I like the idea of doing something more like the Baha’is institution’s in terms of authority and leadership in our church structures. I like the idea of voting in rotating leaders, the leaders should be equal men and women, and of diverse ages. I’m think having apostles is pretty cool, but why do the apostles have to be the decision makers, and why do they have to be in for life? So many of us have been harmed by their particular blind spots and biases. The structure the Baha’is is much more conducive to a sense of shared community, accountability, creativity, and staying relevant to younger people than ours is.
• Give members space to believe what they need and want to believe. For example, don’t want to believe exclusion of queer folks is a healthy thing for the community? Fine. Don’t believe polygamy was God’s will? That’s your business. We won’t correct you at church if you share that, we will respect you and listen to you. We’ll take in the feedback and learn from it. Let’s mature and let people differentiate. At so many larger church meetings in recent years, we waste so much time policing the beliefs of people of all ages.
• Make the institution accountable to member feedback. As it is, they discourage us from writing letters. And there are big issues that harm our community that people have been pestering leaders about for decades they refuse to address. When we report spiritual abuse of a leader, we might be listened to, but nothing really happens, and there is not reporting back. This is so demoralizing.
Is there a way to have both an emphasis on the temple and a strong sense of community? While I agree that ward socials and community culture are lacking in some wards, I wonder if that is because of the focus on the temple and keeping covenants, or because of other factors.
Regarding the temple, after reading your article I thought of this quote from Alfred Edersheim’s book, The Life and Times of Jesus The Messiah, pg 3-4: “Monotheism could not have survived the ancient world without the Temple, its ordinances, its centralized and localized place, the Law, and the hedge of tradition placed around that Law….Around this temple, gathered the sacred memories of the past; to it clung the yet brighter hopes of the future.” Edersheim was a Jewish convert to Christianity, a doctor of divinity and philosophy. His words ring true. The tabernacle/temple has always been an essential part of God’s system or process of inviting us to be more like Him. Why wouldn’t that truth be even more emphasized as time passes, rather than de-emphasized?
Rituals and rites of passage are indeed very important. I could write a part 2 about how they are supposed to be balanced with and to enhance community connection.
Our rituals and the possibility and promise of eternal life are incredibly intriguing and compelling of their own accord. But when the rituals are constantly pushed by leaders and members like a program all must follow/adhere to, when they become cut off from community joy and relationships and focused on individual salvation, its actually harder to be in touch with how moving and beautiful these things can be in our lives.
And when lifestyles and ordinances leading to salvation become the bare bones we strip the church to, those who struggle to enjoy or have faith in the temple can feel really left out and church can become irrelevant to them. Also, once we’ve been through the temple and done some family temple names, what does the church have left to offer us if we’re not enjoying friendship and enjoyable and meaningful activities other than learning about the covenant path at church? I’m really saying we need to revitalize community, things are out of balance, not that our rituals are invalid or harmful. The rituals can be powerful.
Good points shared and a thoughtful look at what has is happening in the world today and how it affects us all. I also have fond memories of church activities growing up and a togetherness through sociality that is certainly lacking and missed today. I’m feel for you being in a new place and longing for community and togetherness and the strength of the good people spending time building each other up. Your reflections of ward activities brings up good memories of similar experiences from my growing up years. Times are different today and people moving to new places and new cities across the world seems to be much more prevalent in these times than in former times.
However, I’m not sure that the blame on lack of sociality belongs on church leadership and the emphasis on temples and covenants. The change in community and social togetherness is a reflection on what technology, globalization of our world and the ways that we as human beings interact. Do I think with fondness on the social strength that the church provided in decades past? Certainly. Do I miss those days of yore when community was stronger and easier. Definitely. But we aren’t doing those less because the church isn’t emphasizing those. Its human culture that is changing. We don’t go out as much. We stay in. Almost everything is at our fingertips and people aren’t connecting as they used to connect. Covid had a huge impact on this and things were lost that haven’t fully returned and may never return.
So, it seems to me that in the midst of a changing world, the church is emphasizing finding connection to God and strength in Him through covenants so that we can survive a very busy and disconnected world. It seems like a message we all need so that even when we are affected by the shifting in social norms that leave us more disconnected, we can still feel a connection to God and peace and strength through covenants and temple attendance where we are reminded of why we are here and where we are going.
I live in both Ohio and Utah these days due to work. I would love more connectivity to church members and I love your thoughts on how we need to promote that more in our wards and branches. I think that message is a great one and you bringing it to light is a great way for us all to reflect and do what we can to improve our community within the church and around us with our neighbors regardless of beliefs.
At the same time, I don’t think that the church leadership focus on covenants and thinking celestial and temples oppose those things. In fact, it strengthens it. If I am true to covenants I have made to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those in need of comfort, then I will reach out and help to build my community within and without the church.
It sounds like your church in Montreal is facing the challenges of these times and being a melting pot of lots of people in flux. I hope that your careful thoughts are put into action and that where you live and where I live and wherever there are good people, that we do all we can to reach our, embrace diversity and comfort each other and spend time together so we can all grow and survive these challenging times. There is so much good as well and the more we find that and cultivate it, we will make it through together.
Thanks for your thoughts. I might just be more comfortable looking at our leaders with a critical eye. I think our leaders should do more to resist the tides of individualism, screen addiction, privatization, neo-liberalism, and disconnection. The lack of women’s authority and power at church creates a male bias that is too focused on external and easily measurable outcomes like checking off ordinances, and not focused enough at all on quality and caring relationships. Patriarchal structures lead us to shoot ourselves in the foot in terms of community.
Many LDS women deeply struggle to enjoy the temple or cultivate their relationships with God there. They find the temple confusing, confining, or sexist. The temple is not their place to find God, whether the leaders like this or not. They might go there and find themselves having anxiety attacks and all kind of thoughts deconstructing the language. I’ve been to the temple a lot myself and enjoyed it fine. (And I can appreciate the leaders’ approach could work for people who do manage to connect with God well there. And I acknowledge there is probably a lot of good intention put into the direction they’ve taken). But approaching middle age and talking to women has made me much more aware of this.
So basically, my thought is that having a bare bones “the temple is the place we connect with God and is at the heart of gospel living” approach marginalizes many people and just doesn’t work. People actually need a range and variety of ways to connect with their own spirits and God, including through higher quality community life, something the church does have a lot more potential and power to invest in than it is currently doing. Relationships and community opportunities are something we should consider an immediate, vital spiritual human need. More immediate in many ways that ordinances. So I think there are good reasons to think critically about the path they have taken and not assumed they’re doing things the best way or the way God really needs and wants.
I like your points and agree that thinking critically and sharing ideas for improvement fosters inclusion and growth even though it takes courage. I actually can see numerous steps that church global leadership has taken to better include women, help them be better recognized and included and listened to. That includes the latest small changes to the temple endowment ceremonies that enhance the role of women and reflect their importance. As you know, Eve partook of the fruit first as a decision that brought about mankind and chose the better part. Adam followed her lead. She later rejoiced in her decision with Adam that they had chosen family over isolation and a simple life.
It is a global church and change and growth can seem gradual. Many of your points about community I already see happening in our local Utah ward but don’t see as much in Ohio. I think conditions can change based on location because people are different in different places. But we grow together and most of your points are things that local leaders can readily incorporate and I’m sure you are sharing with your ward family.
Thanks for your writings and sharing your ideas. I’ve enjoyed seeing your perspective. I hope you continue to share and do so out of a spirit of love and faith.
I agree with the need for community. I remember road shows and dinners and gold and green balls. But all these activities take a lot of time and planning on the part of mostly women. Due to many women working, they just don’t have the time to devote to those things as we used to. Many of the comments have reflected this. Wanting more community activities but hoping someone would provide them because they don’t have the time. Not sure what the answer would be.
I think it’s a lack of time and general resources thing. I think that it is also because a lot of these women (and it is women) are sandwiched into jobs/kids (with more kids activities and academics)/household/parents (and parent household related stuff) – and also grandparent related stuff much more than what used to happen.
Also, I think that there are more substitute community activities out there that offer better terms in terms of “respect” or even money (in some cases).
I would also be curious about the number of women who remember “the good old times” as the “not really good old times – that wouldn’t fly these days” due to being more aware of trauma-inducing situations, more pervasive communications (mostly social media and the internet), and shifting cultural norms.
Awful lot of complaining going on. I miss the old days as well. I was gone for a long time and when I returned I saw immediately that things were not the same. But the world has changed too, and the pandemic intensified things. And families just seem busier nowadays. I do hope we can create a Zion community, but I’m not sure marathon complaining is the path towards that goal. And you really lost me by calling Joseph abusive, compulsive, etc. What a testimony killer.
Not truly to kill any testimonies, though I recognize doubting polygamy could feel threatening considering the standard narrative about our founder. It is possible to hold nuanced views of Joseph, that he was both a genuine prophet and mystic and abused power, probably without realizing it. There is reason to believe Joseph himself doubted his actions toward the end of his life and felt deceived. See: https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-psychology-of-religious-genius-joseph-smith-and-the-origins-of-new-religious-movements/There are many faithful members of the church who have to hold their knowledge that he was abusive to people. Stealing others’ wives, hiding his sexual lifestyle and illegal relationships and keeping them secret from Emma and not following through with his promises to her. I recommend reading Mormon Enigma, which argues his calling was legit., but polygamy was a did revelation. A lot of members believe polygamy was caused by mental illness and self-deception, and this is a very intelligent and legitimate interpretation, and more based on wisdom and mature faith than the standard narrative in many ways. I think this piece transcends mere irritating complaint. Not sure if you meant the comments or just the essay. Trying to look at patterns in creative ways and criticize leadership for not really acting with our well-being and a full awareness of our social needs at heart. It think the framing is articulate and creative.
I agree I see less of a feeling of community than I remember in the 1970s and 1980s. I also agree with those who have said it is less church leadership that has marginalized community than it is societal changes. We don’t have time for Super Saturdays once/month like we used to have.
Community may be defined in different ways. Some time ago I was assigned as a companion to a brother who was approaching 80. He had been active in the Church all his life, but was essentially put out to pasture and given no responsibilities. In spite of the current “texting is ministering” attitude we often see, we attempted to visit our families each month. When my wife and I were assigned to a Mandarin-speaking branch and no longer attended our home ward, my companion told me how much he appreciated our monthly outings together. We built a community between ourselves and with our families.
The Mandarin-speaking branch we now attend is small, but very active with social events. My wife and I are very busy, and the active social calendar of the Branch is sometimes difficult for us. The Branch presidency works hard to bring the members together. A sense of community can be built if leaders and members are committed to that goal.
President Nelson’s singular focus on the Saviour has been a blessing in my life. It has helped me feel more connected to Deity than I have in the past. I do believe that in the end, our salvation is more dependent on how closely we emulated the Saviour in our daily lives than it is on anything else. I think President Nelson has done his best to help us see that. The next church president may emphasize something else. But for now, I appreciate President Nelson’s emphasis.
I was a teen-age convert in the mid-1960s. My wife was a teenage convert in 1970. We both faced parental opposition. We both faced periods of time when we were forbidden by our parents to have contact with church members. We each faced somewhat long periods of time when we were not permitted to be baptized. We sustained our testimonies through those times through study of the scriptures and because of the witness we each had of the truthfulness of the Gospel. We had no community support for much of that time.
I understand times are different now. I understand social connectedness is much more important to today’s young people. Their need for friends in the Gospel is much greater. Their need for community support is greater. All that I understand. Yet, in the end, it is each person’s connectedness to Deity that is fundamental to a testimony. In the 1990s, the Church commissioned a study that showed the most important determinant of a young person’s staying in the church is that person’s own spiritual experiences. Maybe personal spiritual experiences are not the major determinant today; I don’t know. But I do believe, however we achieve it, whether it be individually or through a community, those spiritual experiences are crucial. I think fostering those experiences – for members of all ages – is where our emphasis should lie. If regaining a sense of community in our wards and stakes helps achieve that goal, we should build those communities.
Thanks for sharing. I agree personal spiritual experiences among young people are vital and we need to focus in on this. From my experiences, the heavy handed approach to the covenant path, “you’re only acceptable to God if you believe and commit to the covenant path” approach that I’m seeing among many general and local leaders is actually killing the kids’ capacities to develop their spiritual sensitivities. Turns them off before they have these experiences. So I think the over focus on covenants and check boxes in getting in the way in many communities. So I think we need to not just prioritize not just trying to push spirituality, but creating truly supportive and open relationships with our youth. The mentoring I’m seeing really needs work, it’s very anxious, naïve, and disconnected.
This was an interesting read. I have seen the fall off from a lot of community events to where we are now, but I don’t believe it is a top down problem, or even related to what you are suggesting. Even your example of your ward’s Christmas-dinner-fail shows what I mean. That is a local problem—maybe not enough helpers and people are too busy to help lift the load. One of your other commenters mentioned moms and all the things they are doing now and I think that is astute. Long before the budget cuts and whatever the roadshows had died here. The reasons were people were too busy, their kids were in activities and sports through school, no one wanted to make the drive (our stake spans a few hours driving). This isn’t just an our church problem either as you rightly noted that community building is dying everywhere. Your offered solutions in the comments won’t fix anything. There are many churches who run the way you direct where I live, they are still closing and emptying and selling. They struggle to keep their youth, and their fundraising community fests (once also the mainstay of my youth as I come from a mixed faith family) now are very poorly attended despite the rainbow flags, female ministers and environmentalism dogmas. Is it social media? Is it our more mobile culture? Is it the ever present entertainment choices at the touch of our fingertips through the internet? Is it social media? Is it more structured childhoods with activities planned for most waking hours? Is it that both parents frequently are working to make ends meet and no one has time to volunteer to run some event for free? The church isn’t creating this, it is responding to the reality on the ground by reducing the time we all spend in organized religious settings. What makes our church different from the other organizations (many of which do all the things you suggest)? Ordinances done through a restored priesthood. It is no surprise to me that in a time where people don’t really want to go and be at church, the focus has streamlined down to what the church provides that is actually essential if you truly believe the tenants of the faith. It’s a wise move for our time no matter how much we wish that things could go back to how they were when we were kids.
I find for many people the covenants and ordinances are more compelling when not constantly pushed as being at the center of life. They are a positive thing, but things are out of balanced when this is the primary thing we focus on and pressure all to conform to. I don’t think many churches at all, including ones that have made liberal reforms, are doing a good good listening to younger members and empowering them or responding to the spiritual needs of members today. Maybe the goal should not to have as big a church as possible, maybe the goal should be to have a church that can foster healthy and resilient spirituality across all the stages of faith and that has truly ethical and caring relationships with its members. Our church has struggled with that since its beginning. I’m not trying to pose as someone with magical quick answers, but I do think in the long run, we will have more efficacy if we really make space for and listen to young members, and if we do a better job in some way– not by returning to what we’ve done in the past, because of the ways society has changed– to provide compelling opportunities for members to enjoy greater community connection and belonging. I see that in the research I read about GenZ spirituality, and in my interactions with young adults and teens. I don’t think you’ve understood my perspective. I resonate with this interesting post that theorizes why even the liberal churches desperately trying to keep members are emptying out: https://johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/dear-church-your-silence-is-why-people?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Well said. I couldn’t agree more.
Thanks for your kind support
Remember “I’m a Mormon” campaign?: it was so much about making the table bigger. It was about how our diversity made us strong. It almost was a message to the members: it’s okay to let people be themselves. It emphasized the unity in diversity.
The church today seems to have stepped away from this, in order to to double down on conformity. It focuses on making sure the line dividing “us” from “them” is really clear. Very brightline. It emphasizes not unity, nor diversity, but homogeneity.
The institutional church has a choice to focus its limited resources on getting the people in to bind together and act more like each other or to spend that energy inviting everyone to the table and making them welcome.
Covenants are the former, community is the latter. Bind together. Look inward ,not outward. Double down on conformity. This appeals to the rigid, not the sociable, and is very shame-inducing to the unconventional. The institutional church puts so much energy into controlling the community–you have to look and behave a certain way and, or you don’t belong and aren’t welcome. Covenants over community.
It’s interesting: Jesus never talked about covenants. He talked about people, to people. He spent a lot of his time taking about we should treat each other. He didn’t worry about temple attendance, or making promises of obedience. Or making promises to give everything to a church. He just talked about how we should treat each other, and not treat each other, which is the essence of community.
So sometimes it’s hard for me to see Jesus in this church that bears his name.
Yes, Dawn, I enjoyed that campaign. I found it innovative and fun, I created my own page. I like your framing and response here. Yes, I feel exactly the same way about the problems about the pressure to conform. As a young person before the covenant path rhetoric started in recent years, I found the idea of temples and eternal life incredibly compelling of their own accord without feeling as much pressure to attend the temple as I feel on my family today. This post was inspired by seeing how teens’ openness to the faith tradition can be choked out very early own, even before they have any faith in or a relationship with God, just by the hard-nosed heavy pressure to conform and get with the program. The church is the one that needs to get with the program. Kids today, with their immense access to information, the secularity and individualism that is valued in their public lives, and the very expansive, caring and inclusive values they uphold, need to the church to come meet them where they are at and lovingly persuade them that this spiritual path has something to offer them that aligns with their values. Instead, we find leaders on multiple levels shaming the kids into hustling to live up to their perfectionist standards of worthiness and checking boxes.
Agreed. Not a one of my three children has any interest in the church. They have all told me that they plan to leave as soon as they are able. The rigidity and conformity is a primary reason, but the exclusionary policies aren’t helping. And they are just the kind of people that the church should be interested in keeping. Smart, capable, empathetic and extremely committed to community service. They are going to make a difference during their lifetimes. But not in this church.
I hear you. Even though I see Mormonism as a legitimate path, I love the spirituality it has helped me foster, and I haven’t lost my faith, I’m not confident it’s going to be a psychologically and spiritually healthy place for my kids, and they also feel this way. They don’t need extra expectations or controlling authorities and cognitive dissonance heaped on top of what they are already dealing with. I recently read the Springtide “State of Religion and Young People” Report from 2023 and it talked about how even being marginally spiritually/religious can help young people find sacred meaning and purpose in their lives, and help them be psychologically resilient and adaptable. I’m hoping having some experience in the faith tradition will be a springboard for developing their own beliefs and values, with some things they resonate with from church and continue to use, and other things that they differentiate from with greater knowledge because of experiences at church. The church still offers enough community support that that helps them a little. But I still worry about the harm being done by controlling tactics used by leaders at church.
I love how this podcast episode from Dan Harris and Mia Birdsong articulates the problem of loneliness disconnection for people in current capitalist societies. We can talk all day about how we are more overscheduled and fatigued than ever and how we can’t go back to the old ways of doing stuff, but behind this for many of us is social starvation and a desire to connect in rejuvenating rather than depleting ways. I love how Mia talks about the connection between freedom and friendship, and the approaches she has taken to revitalize community and friendship in her life and her family’s lives. https://open.spotify.com/episode/5vPaoTMzSAnQQF6Qi6WXV0