This is one of a series social media posts that I wrote in 2021 during the height of my Faith Transition. Because I was publicly deconstructing in front of an entirely faithful network of friends and followers, I received a lot reactions, questions, and backlash from people I loved regarding my journey. Many of them were dismissive or hostile towards me because they had been trained to me as a “defector.”
Since an overly long response in a comment or personal message would have been seen as aggressive, I took quotes from these reactions to write these public posts in response. I never attributed the person who asked the question since I didn’t want anyone to feel specifically blamed or called out for having the response. The questions are also not unique. They are part of the scripted response we were taught to have as members of the “in-group.” Still, each post begins with a quotation because it is a question I personally received during my Transition.
🍫In the midst of our faith crisis (aka “trust-in-the-Church crisis”), this line brought me comfort, too.
🔬Every time I ran into another story of an Apostle lying to our faces, or another story of Church leaders using affinity fraud to cheat widows out of their retirement or another story of sexual abuse being excused and covered up by Kirton McConkie, I would think of this.
🪞 Unfortunately, my illusions about this were dashed too, by an unexpected comparison with another spiritual organization that I had been tangentially connected to.
Here’s what happened:
🧘This (other) organization was founded in the 60s under a charismatic Spiritual leader. He taught his followers to adopt a new paradigm of holiness, to prepare for a huge change to sweep the world, to live apart from the world in order to gain enlightenment.
🎒 He set up programs for the women, children, and adolescents of the organization, sometimes sending the children of the most faithful followers overseas to his special spiritual school.
🍲 He and his wife would host many dinners and gatherings for their group and from these many encounters, his followers wrote down his sayings and then passed them around with solemnity and reverence.
🌟 He was renowned around the world as a sage, a leader, a saint (of sorts).
💥 However, in 2010 and then again in 2020, at 77 years old, one of his victims of sexual misconduct came forward and told her story. She published a book and within months, more victims had come forward to corroborate with their own experiences. Things they had buried or stifled for decades began to come out. The entire organization was reeling.
🔀 This is where their story (as an organization) diverges from the LDS church.
❌Where the Church discovered Joseph’s and many others’ misconduct (including the recent exposure of Boy Scouts of America leaders) and attempted to hide it, justify it, and smear the victims,
👏 This other organization pivoted and took the accusations seriously.
🌱 The key leaders expressed surprise because “that wasn’t the leader they knew,” but also committed themselves to caring for the victims, regardless of their surprise.
❤️🩹 They organized grieving groups and hired staff to go on-call, at all hours, to talk to anyone who needed to process out loud.
💻 They sent out multiple emails reminding people of how they could be reached in person or by phone, if they needed support (I know because I received them. These emails were coming to everyone with any connection to the organization, not just “inner circle” members).
👉 They hired a completely independent agency to conduct an investigation and invited any other victims to come forward and share their information privately with the investigators.
💸 They cancelled events and refunded all the money to make sure people weren’t rushed through their healing, then offered free virtual events to heal and serve anyone during the Pandemic.
💌 They updated the community about the investigation weekly or monthly.
🗣 When the verdict came back as guilty, they committed to re-vamping their entire website to remove the hero-worship. They began rewriting their manuals, books, and seminars to focus on the spiritual practices and not the person. They communicated all of this repeatedly with personal updates from the CEO about how she was personally addressing the situation.
💪 They made institutional changes to diversify their board of directors and create an environment of stronger accountability.
👀 As I watched this drama unfold from the sidelines, I had to grieve all over again—
❗️first, because the Church has allowed and even fostered an environment of abuse knowingly and for so long.
😢 Second, because I saw that at the key junctures in history where the Church could have pivoted to make itself a healthier, holier, happier place–where leaders could have protected and served the members–they haven’t.
⤵️ Over and over, Church leaders have retrenched, made excuses, lied when necessary, promoted the reputation of the Church over the needs of victims, and blamed the members for the institutional problems.
🤷♀️ At this point, I don’t expect much. The patterns are heavy and ingrained. Even if a top-dog leader did have the moral fiber left to want to change things, I think the system itself has become too strong for any one person to change it.
💐 But, hope springs eternal and if there were a way back to health, I think it would look something like this:
✨ —all top leaders would confess and forsake their sins of commission (and omission) and immediately go on emeritus status.
✨ —a brand new Q15 would be called with substantial representation from Tonga or Samoa, Africa, Brazil, and Central America (preferably with single, women, and queer representative, too)
✨ —funds would be immediately donated to the purposes for which they were purportedly collected (there are plenty of humanitarian aid causes in the world–throw a dart and solve some)
✨ —members, prospective members and post-members would be treated with respect and dignity. That means: fully informed and transparent missionary work, full financial transparency for members, training and credentialing for lay-leaders, mandatory reportage for abuse, no back-talking about people who leave.
🤯 These measures might sounds unreasonable and extreme.
👉 I think they are the 🔥bare minimum🔥 of Christian accountability.
❓Why does actually acting Christlike seem unattainable for a Church that is so insistent that it represents him?
(Afterword: I didn’t want to get lost in the details, but if you’re interested, the story above is about the 3HO and their founder, Yogi Bhajan )
Image: “I didn’t expect Perfection, but I did expect Respect.” –me
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