For the first few months my conversations with Tim were infrequent. During that time, our topics of discussion shifted from matters of history and doctrine to matters of LDS culture. We talked about the great incongruences between the early Church and what we have today. Tim despised the corporate culture of the modern church. He hated how wearing a blue shirt disqualified you from participating in the sacrament, and the authoritarian nature of Church leadership. I found myself agreeing with Tim, and sharing many his frustrations. For me, I became more and more dissatisfied with Church curriculum, and how focused we had become on behavior modification rather than conversion to Christ.
As Tim became more comfortable airing his grievances with me, he slowly started introducing me to an online forum that he participated in. They were called the Wasatch Group. This forum was comprised of fairly wealthy LDS men and women, mostly nestled in the bosom of an undisclosed part of the Wasatch Front in northern Utah. While they discussed a wide spectrum of topics, they dealt mostly with politics and uncorrelated Mormonism. Remarkably, many of these folks came from lofty circles of Mormondom. Former stake presidents and bishops, relatives and in-laws of General Authorities, etc. They were mostly lawyers, doctors, and corporate executives. All of them were weary of and disenchanted with the LDS Church.
One evening last June Tim mentioned to me that he participated with the group and that he would start forwarding some of their discussions to me. The first post I received was written by Roger Jenkins. As I would learn, Roger and his younger brother Taylor were the principle contributors of the Wasatch Group, and many of the discussions and topics were facilitated by their instigation.
Roger’s question was simple: What is the “church”? During testimony meetings we often hear the repeated phrase “I know the Church is true.” But what does that really mean? If something is true, does that mean it’s real? Accurate? Not false? To say “the Church is true” really is absurd when you think about it. Not because it’s inaccurate, but because to say so isn’t really saying anything at all. And if the Church is true, what is the Church? Is it the 501-3C corporation? Is it the body of Christ? Is it the Kingdom of God?
Now I didn’t take issue with Roger’s post. However, nestled in his comments was a hyperlink that would plant the seed that ultimately change my worldview forever:
http://puremormonism.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-corporatism-has-undermined-and.html
If you don’t take the time to read this lengthy article (or if you’re too scared) this post was written by Rock Waterman, a prominent anti-establishment LDS Blogger. His comments mostly surround the research of Daymon Smith, a LDS cultural anthropologist who had apparently written some sort of exposé about his time working in the Church Office Building. Waterman touched on a few of the issues from Smith’s book, including the real motives behind the big “Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon” push in the 1980s, the City Creek Mall, and other disturbing revelations about the inner workings of the corporate church. The post dealt its criticism toward the Church and the brethren with a heavy hand and a tone laden with sarcasm. Normally I wouldn’t mind so much, but something about the article and this guy Daymon Smith did not sit well with me.
Looking back I realize that up until reading this blog post, while there were many things I disliked about the Church, most of my grievances were with LDS culture at the local level. Despite my gripes, I never thought it was my place to defy the Church as an institution, or to engage what many mainstream LDS consider “speaking ill of the Lord’s anointed.” After all, they held the keys and I did not. For me, it was one thing to attack certain tenants and cultural elements of Modern Mormonism, but quite another to attack the Church itself. Sure, the Church isn’t perfect, and it had made mistakes, but as I read this post by Rock Waterman, I felt an uncomfortable knot in my stomach, and a swell of anger rising within me. Sound familiar?
My knee-jerk reaction was to defend the Church. I started composing a response to Tim. I wish I still had the draft. I know I came up with some soaring prose that went something like this:
“These pseudo-intellectuals sit on a very convenient pedestal. They get to criticize the Church without being apostates, and enjoy the benefits of Mormonism without being valiant. If that’s not having your cake and eating it too, then I don’t know what is. It must be nice . . .”
As I fervently typed my brilliant rebuttal, a small voice in the back of my mind seemed to tell me to slow down. Gradually, the rapid-fire keystrokes subsided, and eventually the typing stopped. As I sat back in my chair in front of my laptop, it dawned on me what was happening. The sensation of nausea, the uneasiness of mind, the anger . . . Though on several occasions I had been able to look back and see when I had gone through a bout with cognitive dissonance, this was the first time that I recognized it while it was happening. This stopped me cold in my tracks.
Though still aggravated, I decided that I needed to give these folks more thorough consideration before disregarding their claims and attacking them. I trashed my scathing draft to Tim and re-read the Waterman post. Still didn’t like it. I felt that with the gift of 20/20 hindsight Smith and Waterman were Monday-morning-quarterbacking the Brethren, without knowing the context of their decisions. Since most of Waterman’s points were derived from Daymon Smith, I started focusing more on him. The title of Smith’s “exposé” was The Book of Mammon: A Book About A Book About The Corporation That Owns The Mormons. Okay, that’s pretty funny . . . but still blasphemous! I read several reviews about the book and saw a wide spectrum of opinions ranging from “it’s gospel!” to the “it’s s#&@!” I decided the only way I would be in a position to judge Smith’s work and opinions would be to read it. So, taking full advantage of our instant-gratification free market, within sixty seconds I was reading The Book of Mammon on my iPad.
In Roger’s post on the Wasatch Group he mentioned that Mammon was a tough read. That was an understatement. Smith must have dropped acid while he was writing this thing! Though a quasi-narrative about his projects and experiences working at the Church Office Building (“The COB”), Smith’s story was incredibly disjointed, constantly switching story telling devices and formats on a whim, and he was downright mean in his description of COB employees (“Cobbers”) and General Authorities (whose identities he shrouded in ridiculous names like Elder Zebedee D. Ossam, or Ezred Z. Pinkertonzz). I could smell smoke coming out of my ears as my poor brain struggled through a few dozen pages before finally giving out.
After putting down the iPad I rubbed my eyes and tried to process what I had read. Through all the confusing prose, a few things stood out. First, Daymon Smith was a psychopath. Second, he was a genius. Third, my romantic view of the divine operations of the COB were incredibly naive. For the first time in my life I learned that there isn’t any official organization called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (don’t forget the hyphen!). That incredibly long name that I won’t repeat is a trademark owned by Intellectual Reserve, a subsidiary corporation of the Corporation of the Presiding Bishopric, which itself is a subsidiary of the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (whoops, there it is again). The CoJCoLDS trumpeted in D&C Section 1 was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 1886. You can easily dismiss that as legal semantics, but still, who knew?!
I found the part of Smith’s book referenced by Waterman that dealt with the big Book of Mormon push in the 1980’s. Smith had done his homework and obviously a lot of digging while working in Salt Lake. Everything in Waterman’s post about how “flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon” was a tool to economically dispose of the Church’s inventory of older-edition BofM’s was all true. Crazy!
I had stayed up all night pouring through this material. As uncomfortable as it was to look behind the curtain, I was fascinated by Smith’s experiences. In terms of what I walked away with after going down this rabbit hole, my thoughts are probably best summarized by the email I sent Tim four days after my introduction to the Wasatch Group:
Tim,
Sorry for not getting back to you sooner on all this. I’ve spent actually quite a bit of time researching this. I’ve read a lot of Daymon Smith’s book (brilliant writer), and looked through many of the blogs that follow this anti-establishment outlook on the Church. From what I gather, the belief amongst these people is that the Church that was established by Joseph Smith disappeared at least in part if not in whole upon the dissolution order mandated by the Feds in 1886, and became fully extinct upon the establishment of the Corporate Sole / Corporation of the President in 1927. Since that time, what we understand to be the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints is not a church, but merely a brand/trademark that is owned by said corporation. This corporation is now the source of what mainstream Mormons regard as modern revelation. But in fact this is at best the bi-product of the wasteful, bureaucratic efforts of well-meaning yet incapable old white men, or at worst a facade / marketing ploy created by the corporation to ensure a revenue stream (tithing) to fund its various ventures (remodeling of Downtown Salt Lake) and subsidiary for-profit corporate entities (Deseret Book, Bonneville Communications, etc.). Is that correct?
I would like you to correct me if I’m wrong or if I’ve misunderstood before I give you my thoughts.
Paul
Tim’s reply:
I would say that is fairly accurate. I have not spent much time at all researching Smith, etc. I do think there are a lot of disenchanted people with the Church who believe in the original “intent” of the Church’s leaders, much like the “tea party” with politics. I think a lot of policies, correlation, and lack of transparency alienate a lot of people. I cant say I agree with all of what this group thinks, but having an “H.R.” handbook, correlation, and other issues bother me as well-perhaps on a different level than others, but they do nonetheless. I think we miss the mark way too often on what pure religion is vs the role of the Church. The checklist of whats important in Church standards compared to what my moral compass tells me arent always aligned….
It was though I had opened the door and stood at the threshold to a world I’d never known, but was always there in front of me. In this expanse everything I thought I knew was now suspended above solid ground — tumbling, disjointed, colliding. Whether I remained at the threshold, step into the unknown, or close the door and retreat to the comfort of correlated reality was yet to be determined. Regardless, I felt like Neo in the Matrix. There I stood before Morpheus, the red pill extended next to the blue. The choice was mine: continue in this artificial world, or become unplugged.
peepstone 