He Said: Retreats and Symposia

During the course of the past ten years I have grappled with the fact that despite my discouragement my wife Bored in Vernal has chosen to associate herself with some pretty ultra-liberal symposia which includes Counterpoint, Rosewood Retreat, and Sunstone Symposium. It isn't that I am anti-intellectual that I don't like her going it is because in terms of faithfulness they have had a decided affect on her formerly orthodox beliefs in the teachings of the Church.

When I first courted and married BiV I had recruited her as a fresh returned sister missionary in my BYU student ward to help me extract quotes voluntarily from talks by Spencer W. Kimball in to a compilation by Yoshihiko Kikuchi on Proclaiming the Gospel: Spencer W. Kimball Speaks on Missionary Work. When I first met her she was far from the bleeding-heart liberal she is today. Then she was an ultraconservative who didn't believe in worldly music, television, or doctrinal theories. Her idea of a great time was going to the Sperry Symposium and she looked forward to attending BYU Education Week.

During this time early in my married life I was working for Richard O. Cowan in the BYU Religion Department. I attended many Church-supported seminars including the Mormon History Association, the Sperry Symposium, and the CES firesides. Brother Cowan was personally involved in all the accepted LDS symposium, forums, and associations and I went to help him whenever he gave a presentation. A couple of times later in my life I was a respondent to his papers.

I personally met Elder Boyd K. Packer a couple of times while working for Brother Cowan who encouraged me to emulate my boss who he said was "a trusted historian" and that he heard good things about me and that I was also trusted. Being as Elder Packer was one of my heroes I wanted to follow his advice since I know there is safety in staying close to the leaders' guidance. Elder Packer during the time I was a student at BYU for seven years discouraged members of the religion department and the CES from associating with the Seventh East Press types and specifically the Sunstone Symposium. Being as my desire was to work in the institute of the Church and eventually become a BYU religion professor I aligned myself to him.

His talk the Mantle is Far, Far Greater had a very decided influence on me particularly in relation to LDS history and influenced my desire not to associate with those who demeaned or tried to put down church leaders:

That historian or scholar who delights in pointing out the weaknesses and frailties of present or past leaders destroys faith--A destroyer of faith--particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build faith--places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities.

I personally knew all of the members of the September 6 group that ended up being excommunicated. After their leaving the church they began attending the more liberal symposia to raise the awareness of others to their mistreatment by Elder Packer and other church leaders. I particularly did not want to put myself in proximity to people who questioned the church nor its leaders. I vowed to never attend such conferences while my leaders discouraged it.

Over the years including in 1993 Elder Packer has consistently come out reaffirming his stand on liberals and their forums:

three areas where members of the Church, influenced by social and political unrest, are being caught up and led away. . . . In each [area], the temptation is for us to turn about and face the wrong way, and it is hard to resist, for doing seems so reasonably right.

The dangers I speak of come from the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement (both of which are relatively new), and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals. Our local leaders must deal with all three of them with ever-increasing frequency. In each case, the members who are hurting have the conviction that the Church is somehow doing something wrong to members or that the Church is not doing enough for them.

In our married student ward I was asked to talk about Mother in Heaven and had BiV help me to collect statements. At first she was satisfied with the concepts that we found particularly the one by Lorenzo Snow that said women who gave birth would be saved in the kingdom of heaven. Little by little over the years she began to lose her fervor and to become bored hence her name Bored in Vernal. When she heard about the September 6 group particularly Janice Allred and Margaret Toscano she felt it was unfair that they were excommunicated. She didn't press the issue for many years until about nine years ago.

One of her close friends who was married and had four children decided she would leave her husband of twenty-five years and become a lesbian. The two had known each other as young mothers in La Leche League and networked together. I recognized her propensity for becoming gay right from the beginning when one of her friends or relatives was receiving shock therapy for being gay and she spoke out harshly against the Church psychologists who were helping him. I also saw a note once lying on a dresser in her parents' home where we were visiting where she apologized for kissing another woman after that I was not comfortable being around her. In addition she never treated her husband with much respect and constantly badmouthed him as being weak and less active. I knew that her marriage was in trouble and I didn't want her to influence BiV in those ways.

In about 2002 after the friend left her husband she convinced BiV to go with her as a roommate to the Rosewood Retreat. BiV wasn't very forthright about her attending this conference nor going and staying with the friend later. She actually lied to me since she knew I was opposed to liberal conferences and symposiums and just said she was going to visit. I didn't know where she was going until after the fact. I also felt very uncomfortable with her friendship with the woman at first because I didn't know if she would put a move on my wife. My fears later proved unfounded as BiV wasn't her type. I am not totally homophobic having had several gay employees but I watched the woman talk for hours to my wife calling her sweetie and professing her love.

When BiV returned from the her first Rosewood conference and began attending on a regular basis I was concerned. At one of the Rosewood Retreat they all dance under the stars and talk about Mormon feminist issues. They had a native American female shaman who taught them about practices and how they could apply to the church. My wife really became involved in the conference and tried to keep it going. Rosewood Retreat started out with some connections to the Exponent Retreat and even the LDS Relief Society but later became more liberal. Although it filled a need in my wife I wasn't totally sad to see it end.

When we moved up to Utah in 2005 and after she met a few people like Janice Allred, Carol Lynn Pearson, and Margaret Toscano she decided to get involved by writing a chapter in Pearson's book on how homophobic I was, and she represented the conservative element on a panel at the Counterpoint Conference about what it is like to have eight children and being a temple going Mormon. I began to fight less over her attendance and dropped her off at the University of Utah and went down to the LDS Family History Library to do genealogical research.

Eventually she started going to Sunstone Symposiums about this same time. Compared to the other two conferences Sunstone was pretty tame. At least at Sunstone you get all kinds from conservatives to liberals to ultra-liberals. My daughter who attended with my wife told me that even though some of the speakers have ax to grind with the church and depresses her when they are so negative that at least there is a mix of different talks. BiV began presenting there after being on a Counterpoint panel and has become a presenter, panelist and now even edits their "Touchstone" column.

I don't know why there needs to be liberal conferences with so many new sponsored conferences like the Society for Mormon Philosophy & Theology Conference. I would prefer she or I attended places that are sanctioned by our leaders. Since the main concern of belonging to groups like Sunstone are intellectual stimulation I feel such conference should meet their needs.

I recently counseled with Elder M. Russell Ballard about my uncomfortableness with my wife being at Sunstone and he told me he doubted she was an apostate and would ever leave the Church. Even though neither he nor I might like the liberal philosophies or negative talks given there that I should be encouraging of her intellectual pursuits. I was recently asked by her to be a respondent at the Sunstone Symposium since I am so conservative. I actually thought for a few minutes about going and might have gone had I had any vacation nor the money to afford the Sheraton Hotel. With a kid on a mission I even had to tell BiV she had to sleep on a couch at my daughter's apartment at BYU. Now that Elder Ballard tells me to support BiV I am blogging on this blog which is as close as I really want to get to liberals.

She Said: Retreats and Symposia

Well! I didn't realize this subject would get quite so personal. But I'm a seeker, I'm a questioner, I have been all my life, even in those early days of marriage described by Dr. B. Had I not been, I wouldn't have investigated the Mormon Church as a 19-year-old college student. And I wouldn't have been open to depart so far from my liberal Protestant roots as to marry in the temple, bear eight children, and forego a career to raise them.

In the past several years, now that my children are a bit older and more self-sufficient, I have enjoyed attending a few unofficial Mormon retreats and symposia. The ones I attend are not encouraged by the Church nor by Dr. B. I wonder why there has been so much controversy over them. Dallin H. Oaks has attempted to explain the reasoning in a talk given in 1989 titled Alternate Voices. Elder Oaks explains:

My remarks will refer to those voices that speak of God, of his commandments, and of the doctrines, ordinances, and practices of his church. Some of those who speak on these subjects have been called and given divine authority to do so. Others, whom I choose to call alternate voices, speak on these subjects without calling or authority.

Elder Oaks distinguishes between the two by saying that both official voices from the Church and "alternate voices" use similar means to promulgate their messages. The Church, he says, has magazines and other official publications, a newspaper supplement, letters from Church leaders, general conferences, and regular meetings and conferences in local units. Similarly, alternate voices are heard in magazines, journals, and newspapers and at lectures, symposia, and conferences. Elder Oaks is very careful in his recommendations regarding these fora--"Members of the Church are free to participate or to listen to any alternate voices they choose, but Church leaders should avoid official involvement, directly or indirectly." He reasons that there are procedures which are used by the Church to ensure approved content for materials published in the name of the Church or used for instruction in its classes. "They provide a spiritual quality control," he says, "that allows members to rely on the truth of what is said. Members who listen to the voice of the Church need not be on guard against being misled. They have no such assurance for what they hear from alternate voices."

Nevertheless, certain symposia, none of which are controlled by Church correlation, enjoy the favor of mainstream members like Dr. B. These include the Mormon History Association, the FAIR Conference, The Sperry Symposium, the recent Sacred Space Symposium at BYU, and many others. Even liberal speakers such as were heard at the recent SMPT conference at Claremont seemed above reproach, perhaps because of their prestigious Howard W. Hunter Mormon Studies Chair they have recently added to their religion program. I think it's strange that some "so-called intellectuals" are tacitly approved in Church circles, while others are not.

I do find it stimulating to attend Mormon-themed conferences and symposia. Different religious styles appeal to different people. Some find a questioning approach exhilarating, while others find it threatening and exhausting. There are a large group of LDS members in the mainstream who prefer an approved, correlated, "answer-based" curriculum. I find this boring. Hopefully we can learn to respect each other's styles.

Finally, retreats seem to fulfill a desire for social interaction with like-minded people. The few retreats that I have attended I have searched out for their open-minded approach to Mormonism. I do not feel the need to accept every perspective which is held by these varied groups of people, but I am enriched by hearing their stories and seeing how they are able to integrate their unconventional styles into the LDS Church.

I'd love to hear about some of the conferences and retreats that our readers have experienced. Which ones have you attended? Are there any of these gatherings which you would avoid, and why?? Tell us about it!