/u/uniderth made a post called a while back called “How would you stop the bleeding?“. Here is the post in full:
You have free reign to make any changes to stop the max Exodus of members from the Church. The only rule is you have to keep the church intact as an organization.
Bonus points if you win back members who have left.
This reminded me of a post I made a couple years ago. I believed there needed to be some sort of divine intervention, but since then I’ve allowed a non-literalistic belief to take shape for me.
What else would I need to see changed? What exactly do I think would need to happen for healthy Mormon spirituality and incorporate the 6 Sources of Revelation? I thought about it for quite a while, and there’s quite a few things I would do. I will rank them from most important to least important
- Admittance of past wrong-doings: Racism, sexism, and homophobia haunt Mormon culture, and it needs to make a formal apology and actively seek forgiveness by changing the culture.
- Get rid of the hierarchy: The hierarchy breeds an environment of superiority and hero worship in place of spirituality. Hierarchy should be reframed into being nothing other than a figurehead, kind of like how many of the European monarchs are today Or even better the hierarchy should be completely removed. A more anarchistic model of religious practice would be preferable. You choose for yourself who you look up to. You take it upon yourself to get stuff done in the community (callings). You believe what you believe and not be shamed into believing something else.
08/17/20 EDIT: I have since changed my opinion on such a model. The Fellowship of the Remnant claims to allow revelation from any of its members, any everyone is equal, To date, however, there have only been 2 people to propose revelation for this community: Denver Snuffer and Jeff Savage. Denver Snuffer has edited scripture as well as added 22 revelations to the “Teachings and Commandments“, which is the spiritual successor to the Doctrine and Covenants. Jeff Savage proposed the “Statement of Principles” as a revelation to the Fellowship of the Remnant, but was met with unparralelled criticism. It turns out that Snuffer had a hand in writing it and many people wanted Snuffer to entirely write it. Ultimately, Savage’s short statement was heavily altered by the community, and Snuffer remains the only one to have a revelation canonized.
In other words, the snufferites employ an anarchistic model in theory, but do not in practice. They have an unofficial prophet that calls all the shots, just like in the LDS church. Arguably this anarchistic in-name-only system is more difficult to criticize because people believe that Denver doesn’t actually have the level of power that he does.
In light of this, I think there needs to be a system in place that guarantees that the average church members’ voices are heard. I have come up with one idea:
We could have a crowd-sourced book of scripture where all elders are able to freely write down their theological speculations and beliefs. It could kind of be like a modern-day Journal of Discourses. I think it would be wise to move most of Joseph Smith’s teachings to this book, so that he is appropriately on the same level as others.
Regardless of gender, people are ordained as a deacon at 12, a teacher at 14, priest at 16, and elder at 18. When you are ordained an elder you are given your own little corner of the crowd-sourced scripture to do with as you please.
I think it would be wise to have a go-to team of people which functionally act as a president and board of a non-profit organization. They take care of day-to-day stuff like maintaining facebook pages, accounting, connecting people together, running the meetings (like zoom meetups), etc. I also think having a president for this non-profit community would be wise, so they can handle things like IRS paperwork.
To keep this system from devolving into a gerontocracy or bureaucracy you have the board be elected by the general membership and have term lengths. I think 2 years for apostles and 5 years for the president would be a good length of time. it allows community building to get done, but also allows turn over.
Regardless, I recognize that this may not be the best system. I think if a community wants to form, they will have to come up with how they want their community to be ran. I also think that communities need to evolve and change when they need to. - Non-literalism: Let people have a non-literalistic approach to everything. No mandate on the level or type of belief. Encourage discussion for tough historical topics and questionable things in scriptures.In an ideal world I would like to see a version of the scriptures based on the morality of our day and not the Iron Age.
- Women’s ordination: Women should be granted unfettered access to the priesthood and be allowed to take on leadership positions. IMO the priesthood should be synonymous with “friendship”
- LGBT: Full inclusion of LGBT folks. Not only tolerance and acceptance of their relationships, but celebration of them. We should celebrate all families.
- No more temple recommendations: Temple recommendations are ways of tracking and shaming people into orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Everyone should live their lives how they feel is best and be permitted into holy spaces.
- Financial transparency: Every penny is tracked and made public.
- Wise financial spending: Use its funds to support its meetinghouses, temples, youth groups, and community projects. Restart doing social activities like dances, linger longer, funding art/culture, and doing roadshows. Everything after that should go towards humanitarian causes. No major investments like a mall.
- Missions: No more shaming for not going on missions. All missions are 100% funded. No more proselytizing missions, just humanitarian missions.
- Temples: No more temples that clearly break the spirit of Mormon 8:37. They should be no fancier than the Congo temple.In addition temple covenants should be altered. No more Law of Consecration and rework the Law of Chastity. The temple should chiefly be a place of refuge and meditation.
- Tithing: Tithing is no longer required. No recommendations other than “10%”. It could be gross, net, or increase. People could give to a charity or cause of their choice and count it as tithing.
- No more sexual shaming: We should take a more realistic, safe, and educated approach to sexuality and chastity.
- No more excommunication: Its a barbaric process that needs to be left in the past. 08/17/20 EDIT: I am in favor of excommunication for murder and sexual abuse.
- Streamlined resignation: No more lawyers or notaries. Its as simple as unsubscribing to an email chain. If you want to re-join its as simple as re-subscribing (with an option to perform the baptism ritual if its important to you)
I’m sure I’ll think of a couple more. I’ll edit this post if/and when that happens.
What are some thing you need to see from an organization for a healthy Mormon spirituality?