This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
Why is the online Latter-Day Saint community fractured?
In many ways, the church community on social media resembles the disintegration of the early Christian church. For example, where is the priesthood structure? We call it “Twitterstake,” but where is the Stake President? Where are the Bishops? There isn’t a structure to fall back on. We hearken to the voices that rise to the top based on the same method as anyone else on social media: whoever gains favor with the mob and gets their signal boosted by big tech companies. Whoever gets quoted in a newspaper or makes slick Youtube videos. How much more constructive, then, can we be than any other community on social media? The Nephites “became weak like unto their brethren the Lamanites” when they ignored the prophet Alama and stopped following God’s laws. After all, what gives us the strength of the Holy Ghost? Listening and hearkening to the prophets. If we are constantly checking our Twitter feed for advice from popular BYU students, how likely are we to heed today’s prophets? Now, of course fellow members of our community ought to provide a good atmosphere and positive discussion, but the lack of priesthood structure will always be a challenge. I don’t mean this as an attack on anyone, as we are all just doing the best we can. But perhaps there are some guidelines we can all follow to make this community more unified and effective.
Online Apostasy – In his landmark book “The Great Apostasy,” James E. Talmage narrowed in on a few issues that toppled the early Christian church: external persecution, alteration of ordinances, elimination of priesthood structure, and infiltration of foreign philosophies. We see each of these things happening today, but is it anywhere more prevalent than on social media? Why is this? A lot of it has to do with the structure of the medium. Social media is a popularity contest. Reddit is probably the worst. It is designed to boost the most popular voices, so why should we be surprised that 90% the “Mormon” community on Reddit is Antimormon? The Antimormons have huge numbers, they have huge support from the media, they have big powerful groups helping them, and they have the crowds of popular culture as their ally. Every day, tech companies are designing their product to be more mob-rule and less effective as a space for our church community. The problem isn’t really “free speech” but how voices are selected to be at the top of the platform. This is why you don’t see many nice grandpas or wise old Buddhist monks trending on Youtube.
Open Your Mouth – It’s easy to just delete your account, but social media is also a great opportunity for the church. It can be a great missionary tool to disseminate our message and demonstrate who we are. Missionary work can make a great leap if we figure out how to use it. Also, if we walk away, that will just be one more open space for a fake “Mormon” to step in and give the church a bad name. I think the online problem wouldn’t be nearly as bad if more orthodox members boldly would make their voices heard. More people would see our righteous works and be inspired to come to Christ. But then again, if more church members jump into this apostate environment as it is, it may make more members go apostate. It’s hard to be barraged every day with never-ending opposition and bigotry and not be affected by it. That’s why so many turn it off.
The internet may be new technology, but these issues are far from new. Brigham Young had to deal with the same issues when Utah was opening up to the world, and he found there was no escaping persecution. The Nephites had to deal with these these kinds of issues when dissenters were trying to overthrow the government and prevent the army from defending the land from Lamanite invaders. Israel had to deal with the influence of Babylon. Over and over again in the scriptures, we read about how the Saints dealt with these same issues. Though the medium may be different, the issues are very similar. So, let’s consider each apostasy issue one by one and see what we can do about it:
External Persecution – The mature thing to do when someone is picking on you is to ignore it. Persecution hasn’t gotten so bad that we are getting pulled from our homes and tarred and feathered, after all. But I think church members don’t realize just how bad things are. Ex-Mormons are advertising their products by graffitiing freeway walls of Utah. They are going around all the Marriott hotels and defacing copies of the Book of Mormon in hotel rooms, hundreds of thousands of them. They are bullying everyone they can online, and it is to the point you may get screamed down for talking about basic church doctrine. It’s easy for a wizened old church member with a strong testimony to ignore the hatred, but what about young teenagers? What about the younger generation that is surrounded by this? It’s something we must confront for them.
The historical solution has always been to sequester ourselves. Moroni built his walls and Lehi sailed to the New World. But the internet is an open and vulnerable space. The best we can do is make block lists to share among ourselves, and teach our children how to withstand mean words. But what about when mean words become real physical threats? The online mob is becoming more and more aggressive, as we recently saw in the case of those Covington Christian high school students who were targeted for violent threats because of misguided news reports. What do we do when the hate mob comes after us? Well, in the case of the Covington students, the kids were unfortunately thrown under the bus by their school leadership and local Catholic diocese. I think that is the biggest problem. We need to be able to see past the politics of members of our community and defend them for the sake of unity. To me, the online mob resembles the Lamanites who were stirred up to anger by dissenting Nephites. Antimormons today run to the media with false and bigoted narratives about the church, like the Amalekites ran to the Lamanites, and then the outrage-mob comes after us. But they don’t come after us as a whole. They come after this faction and that faction, like how the Lamanites went after one city at a time. How did the Nephites deal with it? Unity. No throwing anyone under the bus. The Nephites stood their ground, even for neighboring cities they may not have liked. We have to go out and meet them in battle as a united body, standing up for each other. This means if a Latter-Day Saint high school kid is being attacked because of a certain hat he’s wearing and a video that makes him look like a jerk, we need to stand up for that kid. Even if we don’t like the kid’s politics or the smirk on his face.
Often when I tweet something about the church, I feel the weight of external persecution. Barrages of nasty comments, even threats. It feels so good when another church member steps in and says something on my behalf, to know that someone I have never met has my back. It especially feels good when it comes from someone I can tell disagrees with a lot I have to say. When the online Antimormob mob escalates to physical threats, I know the community will be there for my physical support.
Unfortunately, one of my first experiences in Twitterstake was to be block by one of the most prominent church members on the internet. Instead of a friendly chat with my religious community, I got a door slammed in my face. I have to be honest, this embittered me to the entire community. I quickly discovered that the online community is fractured and fighting amongst themselves. They hold greatest fealty to their political ideas, their social justice philosophies, or their conservative crusades than to the church, and that leads them to war against fellow church members.
This week, I was disappointed to read prominent online church members bashing the #Deznat church community after a mainstream media company published a hit piece about it. If you are being quoted in the mainstream media alongside top Antimormons to attack fellow brethren in the church, that is a problem. I realize many of those attacking the community feel attacked by them, but further division does not heal division. I have never posted with the hashtag #Deznat and I do not consider myself part of that community, but I have given my thoughts about it: I think it is an effort to protect our community identity from appropriation by the media, and thus could benefit all of us. “How much do we get to define ourselves for the world? Search for “Book of Mormon” on the internet and you will find page after page about a Broadway musical created by non-members ridiculing the church. Few people read the actual book, even though we send tens of millions of people across the world to present it to people. We want so hard to define ourselves, and everyone else is trying so hard to define us instead. Does DezNat speak to this? Perhaps the most powerful thing of all about this hashtag is that if the mainstream media dismisses it as ideological or extremist, this will further prove the hashtag’s point–that the mainstream media unfairly defines the church. It will illustrate just how powerless an oppressive group of media corporations have made church members to define themselves. This also relates to President Russell M. Nelson’s recent declaration that the media should use the church’s real name instead of the nickname ‘Mormon’–a declaration which has gone pretty much unheeded by the media. Church leadership and church membership appear to be realizing that they are being appropriated, and they are fed up with it. The big message behind #DezNat, according to those we spoke to, is for the media to report news and not control or influence the church.”
It is difficult for church members to ask the media to stop defining us if fellow members are attacking them. It’s stated mission is to encourage people to follow the prophet, and this can be achieved in a positive, constructive way, as long as it does not get infiltrated by extremist politics, intolerance, or hatred.
Alteration Of Ordinances – A leader in the Ex-Mormon community recently said he got porn stars temple recommends and that they would film pornographic acts inside the temple. This bold attack on the church’s sacred ordinances reflects the Antimormon focus on ordinances–we have seen this also in their attack on Bishop worthiness interviews, their attack on church policies about baptism, their attack on the church’s definition of marriage, their attack on temple garments, etc. Instead of boldly standing against this attack, some members unfortunately join in on these attack–or at least people who claim to be church members. This Ex-Mormon leader’s claim is an extreme example, but I actually find mild examples all the time. There are little shifts in our perception of ordinances that add up to a huge shift. When we consider what makes an ordinance important as a physical demonstration of our faith, the alteration of ordinances is all about how online rhetoric changes our physical behavior–how apostate rhetoric transitions to action. It could be little things like drinking coffee, getting tattoos, etc. It could then transition to bigger things like watching porn, agitating for extreme popular philosophies in Sunday School, etc. When we start to alter our behavior based on apostate rhetoric, it can snowball until we even find ourselves making fraudulent temple recommends for porn stars. Satan attacks ordinances because he knows once the ordinances are corrupted then we will find it difficult to transition our testimony to positive behavior, and once our testimonies are isolated as mere ideas we then get swept away like leaves in the wind.
The way to counter this is to focus on the importance of ordinances. Remember that baptism, sacrament, and everything else is an important basis for our behavior. Encourage others to log off Facebook for a while and go to the temple. Traditional members get very upset when they read stories on Twitter about a priesthood leader corrupting ordinances to the slightest degree–and understandably so, because things snowball once apostate rhetoric leads to real action.
Elimination Of Priesthood Structure – There is no priesthood leadership to look to on “Twitterstake,” but we all still have our own local priesthood leadership. We need to attend all local church events and participate in the local physical community. But we can also retain true priesthood leadership even on online space by denying anyone else that position of influence.
When President Nelson made his announcement about using the church’s real name instead of “Mormon,” the news media, fake members, and Antimormons quickly lashed out. At first I was confused by their strong reaction, but then I realized that President Nelson had undercut their method of appropriating our community and of defining us. The name policy helps cut away the false priesthood structure that we see online. When we let the news media define who we are, what our history is, and what we should do, that is the false priesthood structure that destroyed the early Christian church. That is Roman persecution and the invasion of Babylon. That is why it is disgusting to see the Salt Lake Tribune publish articles titled ‘Mormon Land.’ That is why we should not stand for it. We are a living church led by prophets who are directed by Jesus Christ, and the moment we look instead to the Salt Lake Tribune, we are selling away our birthright.
This requires a different and unique mindset which I don’t think any other community really possesses, and which for too long has been neglected. Other groups that are frequently maligned by the mainstream media understand the need to push back. But complaining about the Salt Lake Tribune is not enough to solidify our identity as a culture and community. Other Christian groups look fanatically to the bible for their identity. But I haven’t seen anybody who looks to a leadership group of people to define their entire culture. Who does that? The Catholic leadership has lost the faith of much of their community. Others accept what is written on Wikipedia. We are unique in how we pioneer priesthood leadership in the age of the internet. So we need to tread carefully.
In 4 Nephi we read of a social hierarchy emerging as the Nephites apostatized from a state of equality to a state of division. James E. Talmage likewise noticed that in the early apostate Christian church, “marked distinctions and recognitions of rank arose among the bishops, those of large and wealthy cities assuming authority and dignity above that accorded by them.” Lower authorities assumed greater authority than the Apostles and prophets, usually because they were wealthy and thus had a greater media platform. This happens all the time today on social media, where a rock musician, a wealthy family, or a church member with lots of connections will usurp our culture of equality by anointing themselves cultural leader. Ironically, these self-appointed leaders often preach sermons of “equality.” Yeah, equality… as long as they are in charge of the masses.
Infiltration Of Foreign Philosophies – I won’t go into any details here because that would inevitably lead to a backlash where now I am the extremist for opposing these philosophies. It isn’t a Left or Right issue–all sides are guilty of this–it is the placing of politics or anything else upstream of the gospel. That is the problem. It is those agitating for “progressive” change to align with some other movement, to catch us up to the current year or to take us back to the “good old days.” The infiltration of popular culture and other poisonous philosophies has become so widespread, that now the default discussion is how we need to fit the gospel in with these other ideas. Why? Why do we need these foreign philosophies?
Well, we cannot antagonize everyone we meet as “impure Gentiles,” and we can’t sequester ourselves out in the wilderness away from foreign influence. Much of these modern philosophies are just pragmatic methods of dealing with life’s challenges, and life is better for us when we adopt them. The challenge is to weed out devilish influences and adapt. How do we adapt to our modern environment? In 2015, Elder Uchtdorf gave a great talk about how Daniel adapted to his circumstances in Babylon, and through his bravery and bold refusal to lower his standard he influenced the Babylonian king toward righteousness. He didn’t antagonize the king. He didn’t refuse to take part in anything having to do with Babylon. We can likewise stand boldly by our standards in Babylon by zealously keeping to commandments we know to be true. If the persecution becomes too strong, then things would be different. But right now we can stand boldly by God’s specific commandments and follow the words of the prophet to influence others for good.
Stop Infighting – What do you do when fellow members attack you online? You don’t even know for sure if they actually are members. First, realize there is a chance they could be fake members seeking to sow discord. People actually do that. Secondly, realize that maybe you are in the wrong. There have been plenty of times that someone called me out on something and after a few minutes of introspection I realized they were right, and I corrected my behavior and thanked them for calling me out. Just calmly and objectively think about what they are saying. Are they addressing an issue that really is about spirituality and the church? If not, then separate it from the church and address it for what it is–have a heated political discussion if you are into that sort of thing. If it is about the church and after considering the issue you think they are wrong, there is still always something to be learned from their hostility. A stoic approach can always glean a constructive lesson, because everyone has something helpful to offer, and everyone is trying to be helpful, when it comes down to it, even if they are acting hateful and angry. This is what I try to keep in mind when someone comes at me, or when someone acts hurt because I came at them too aggressively. The thing we ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT DO is complain to a Salt Lake Tribune reporter about them or think they have it coming when a non-member mob comes after them.
How To Discern Apostasy – Of course, there are always going to be wolves who infiltrate the flock and we need to call them out. If we don’t call them out, we find ourselves being defined and led by people trying to tear us down. I believe there are some very prominent wolves in the church community on Twitter and other social media who should be called out. But how do we determine what is apostasy? Who are we to judge? We don’t have a Bishop or Stake President around to take care of it, and someone needs to do something, right? The test is how they compare with church doctrine. Try to avoid comparing their rhetoric with popular philosophies and stick to pure doctrine. Don’t feel it is your duty to purify the community or a certain hashtag. Just give your opinion and move on. There are always going to be online trolls who take over a certain hashtag or try to lead others astray by pretending to be faithful church members. If we fight back against one, three more pop up like the head of a hydra. So, it’s not so much about keeping them away as it is informing fellow saints about how to recognize the wolves and to heed them not. Our ability to recognize wolves needs to become second-nature. Just take a bold stand, united with those we know to be sincere church members, regardless of politics or whatever else.
The point I want to emphasize is unity as a community. If tomorrow Fox News wrote a hit piece about the Democrats in the church, or if CNN wrote a hit piece about the Republicans–it shouldn’t make a difference, we need to stand by our fellow Saints.