Russell M. Nelson

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Religion News Service does a fine job of interviewing LGBTQ+ critics of BYU honor code

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Religion News Service does a fine job of interviewing LGBTQ+ critics of BYU honor code

First things first: Religion News Service deserves praise for publishing a story about the doctrinal code at a private religious university that actually discusses the contents of said code.

Here is the shocking part. This long news feature about Brigham Young University even mentions, near the end, that students who disagree with the school’s teachings actually have their own reasons to choose to live and study on this campus. Is free will involved? This is a mystery. Hold that thought.

However, I would note that this recent RNS report — “BYU officially restores honor code ban on ‘same-sex romantic behavior’” — leaves a crucial, related question unanswered: Do students actually SIGN the doctrinal code as part of enrollment? In other words, do they pledge to follow, or not to openly oppose, the contents of the code?

That’s a logical question, since this story makes it clear that students living in a voluntary community defined by these doctrines are still free to oppose them in public media.

In fact, the RNS story does not include material from an interview with a single student, faculty member, parent or trustee who defends the doctrinal code. This could be a statement about RNS journalism doctrines (Why quote people who are wrong?) or it may reflect the reality that it is now more controversial to openly support the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than it is to oppose them. Here is the story’s overture:

LGBTQ students at Brigham Young University celebrated three years ago when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ flagship school quietly deleted from the honor code a ban on “homosexual behavior.” For the first time, many students began holding hands or kissing in public. Others took the moment to come out as queer.

Then, a month later, the Church Educational System administrators who oversee BYU’s campuses issued a statement clarifying that despite the deleted language, “same-sex romantic behavior” wasn’t compatible with the honor code.

Last week, the Church Educational System restored language to the code explicitly prohibiting LGBTQ affection — now called “same-sex romantic behavior.”


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Latter-day Saints' incremental changes on doctrine add up to a solid religion story

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Latter-day Saints' incremental changes on doctrine add up to a solid religion story

It’s commendable — and all too infrequent — when pundits admit mistakes.

So let’s send a hosanna or two toward Religion News Service columnist Jana Riess, who specializes in her own faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (long nicknamed “Mormons”). Her column reviewing the four years under renowned heart surgeon Russell M. Nelson as LDS president admitted that “if I was guilty of expecting little from a nonagenarian company man, I’ve had cause to repent.” (Everybody else was saying the same.) She’s now “very glad to have been wrong.”

Riess’s latest look — “Oh, now I get it: Purging the word ‘Mormon’ is a bid for the mainstream” — does complain about one move (see below). But she hails 10 developments under Nelson, who turns 96 today. Taken together they form a solid story theme others could pursue. Given the faith’s 21st Century growth alongside setbacks elsewhere in American religion, national and regional media could combine the changes with how the LDS empire has fared during and after the COVID-19 crisis.

A summary of the top 10 items in this change-resistant faith, interpreted in terms of Riess’s policy preferences:

* Though she says “mountains of work” remain, 2019 reversal of a 2015 policy ended automatic excommunication of same-sex couples and allows baptisms and blessings for their children.

* Also in 2019, there was “a little progress” on women. The status of biblical Eve was elevated in the central secret “endowment” ritual, in which wives no longer vow to “hearken” to their husbands. Also, girls and women are now allowed as official witnesses to ordinances.

* Though white Americans continue to dominate global leadership, for the first time in LDS history Nelson’s two newly named apostles were from neither North America nor Europe. Choices for lower ranks are also more diverse.

* Young adult missionaries can contact families weekly rather than twice a year, and their access to mental health services has improved.

* With the demise of Boy Scout ties, the church’s overhauled youth program has equal spending on girls.


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Associated Press coverage of post-Mormon Latter-day Saints full of irony — or is it mockery?

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“Does anyone see the irony here?” Joel Campbell asked in reference to The Associated Press’ coverage this week of changes in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Me! Me! Me!

Campbell, a journalism professor at Brigham Young University, was referring to an AP story out of Salt Lake City.

As Campbell noted, both the AP headline and lede seemed full of irony — or is there any chance it was mockery?

Here’s the deal: The story concerned new developments in the church’s effort to drop the name “Mormon.”

If you need a refresher on that subject, this 2018 post by Richard Ostling is a must read. Ostling was the co-author with his late wife, Joan, of the book “Mormon America: The Power and the Promise.” And our own tmatt wrote a national column on this topic: “Escaping the M-word: Trying to go back to the Latter-day Saint future.”

Back to AP: This is the headline:

Mormon websites renamed in push to end use of nicknames

This is the lede:

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Mormon church said Tuesday it will rename websites, social media accounts and employee email addresses to get rid of “Mormon” and “LDS” as the faith continues a push to be known by the religion’s full name and not shorthand nicknames it previously embraced and promoted.

Alrighty.


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Ah, the journalistic beauty — and boredom — of Mormon leadership succession

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Ah, the journalistic beauty — and boredom — of Mormon leadership succession

On the religion beat, it doesn’t get any better than a papal election. The international media go bonkers with speculation on who’s up or down in the cardinals’ secret maneuvering to select the next occupant of Peter’s throne, accompanied by sidebars on the arcane process, and culminating in those twice-daily gatherings in Peter’s square to watch for chemically-induced white smoke.

Analysis of the papabile (“pope-able”) personalities often turns out to be amusingly off-base. (You can forgive the Religion Guy for noting that Time magazine was the only major medium to name John Paul II as a prospect in 1978, because total credit goes not to yours truly as the New York religion writer but to crackerjack correspondents back when the weekly operated a Rome Bureau.)  

By contrast, contemplate the journalistic beauty –- and boredom –- in picking a new head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a. “Mormon”).  If reporters have the time this week, they can already update their prepared  articles on the man who will take charge upon the death of President Thomas S. Monson, who turns 88 on August 21.

(At the church-owned daily Deseret News, Monson was an ad executive and later general manager of its parent publishing and printing firm. The church operates without professional clergy so that, remarkably, its doctrinal authorities have secular careers minus the academic training in theology expected of the average Protestant parson or Catholic parish priest.)  

 As Godbeat veterans will be well aware, the new president is automatically the man (yes, necessarily a male) with the earliest date of admission into the LDS church’s governing Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It’s as though the longest-serving cardinal would always become the next pope.


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