My relationship with the Church
has been complicated for a long time now. I’ve worked at Church headquarters
and suffered the effects of bureaucratic burnout. I deal on a daily basis in my
current job at BYU Studies with the complexities and contradictions of LDS
history, doctrine, and culture. I’ve learned to navigate these turbulent waters
with some degree of equanimity, largely because in the background I’ve always
had my ward family, in whose company I’ve felt both accepted and comfortable.
Until this summer.
I endured the first part of the pandemic
quite well. At work, it was almost as if there was no pandemic at all, except
that the parking was fantastic. I went in to BYU every day, with two other
colleagues, each of us in a different room, so we felt quite safe. The rest of
the staff worked remotely, which worked out just fine. The faculty and students
were doing the distance learning thing, so the large Joseph F. Smith Building,
where our offices are, was quite empty.
On Sunday, attendance at sacrament
meeting was very limited, and my wife and I watched the service at home on the
TV, where it was streamed on YouTube. Those who attended, which we did very
occasionally, wore masks and practiced social distancing. Second-hour classes
were held on Zoom, although Primary was suspended for obvious reasons.
We also practiced great care when
we shopped in retail stores, and although we patronized restaurants regularly
to support this struggling industry, we did so through takeout, not in-person
dining. This was inconvenient, but necessary to preserve public health.
Then things began to open up as
the vaccines became available and case numbers dropped significantly. My two colleagues
and I continued to go to work, but now others came to the office, although we
still held staff meetings on Zoom. My wife and I shopped without masks and even
dined inside at a few restaurants and attended a movie theater. At Church,
things changed too. The social-distancing guidelines were relaxed, and
second-hour classes (including Primary) resumed in person. Things were looking
up.
But then the delta variant
arrived, and all the numbers went south, for the state of Utah and especially
for Utah County, where I live. Why? Because Utah County is heavily LDS and so
many Latter-day Saints are Republican, which means they were getting their
information from questionable right-wing sources, and they were taught to doubt
both science and common sense. They were also taught that their personal
freedom was the most important value in the universe. The percentage of the
population vaccinated in Utah County, and especially in north Orem, where I
live, was abysmally low, and many of the unvaccinated were also anti-maskers. My
wife and I still attended sacrament meeting, but we were among just a handful
of members who wore masks, even though we had been vaccinated. Some friends of
ours who had been vaccinated came down with COVID. Then our elders quorum
president and his wife also experienced breakthrough cases. These were not mild
cases, although neither couple was hospitalized. Obviously, this delta variant
is not something to take lightly. We figured we were doing our part to help
stop the spread, especially to the vulnerable children who were too young to be
vaccinated. And we felt that even if we weren’t contagious, we were setting the
correct example. There was nothing political about this. Our actions were all
based on public health guidelines and the statistics that were growing
increasingly more alarming.
We were tremendously relieved when
on August 12, 2021, the First Presidency finally sent this email to every
member:
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
We find ourselves
fighting a war against the ravages of COVID-19 and its variants, an unrelenting
pandemic. We want to do all we can to limit the spread of these viruses. We
know that protection from the diseases they cause can only be achieved by
immunizing a very high percentage of the population.
To limit exposure
to these viruses, we urge the use of face masks in public meetings whenever
social distancing is not possible. To provide personal protection from such
severe infections, we urge individuals to be vaccinated. Available vaccines
have proven to be both safe and effective.
We can win this
war if everyone will follow the wise and thoughtful recommendations of medical
experts and government leaders. Please know of our sincere love and great
concern for all of God’s children.
The First Presidency
Russell M. Nelson
Dallin H. Oaks
Henry B. Eyring
We thought, surely our fellow ward
members will see the wisdom in this and, as the Primary song goes, “follow the
prophet.” We were expecting to see a similar email from both our stake
president and our bishop, urging members to get vaccinated and resume wearing
masks at church meetings. No such messages appeared. So we were curious about
what sacrament meeting would look like. We were both pleased and disappointed.
Instead of just a handful of members wearing masks, about 50 percent were
masked that first Sunday. The great disappointment came when our new bishop,
who is a Church employee, appeared on the stand without a mask. At the
beginning of the meeting, he came to the pulpit and said, in effect, “You all
received an email from the First Presidency this week. We just want to assure
you that you have your freedom of choice.” That was it. No encouragement to
follow the prophet. No leading by example. Later that week, I sent him an email.
He’s a good friend whom we’ve known for many years, so I feel comfortable giving
him a piece of my mind. The piece I gave him was this: Never in my life did I
expect to see a priesthood leader stand at the pulpit and tell the members, in
word and by example, that following the prophet is optional. Sure, we all have
our agency, but in the Church we don’t tell people that smoking is just a personal
choice, or paying tithing, or being chaste. We encourage people to use their agency
to do what is right.
To his credit, he did start
wearing a mask to sacrament meeting the next week, but there was no encouragement
from the pulpit to follow the guidance of the First Presidency. And in the
weeks since that first Sunday after the August 12 email, the numbers wearing
masks have decreased even as the numbers of COVID cases in Utah have increased
and the ICUs have filled up.
The percentage of Utah County
residents who have been fully vaccinated is 44.4. The percentage of north Orem
residents who have been fully vaccinated is 42.7. I have no illusions that my
ward is an outlier. I think my fellow ward members are pretty average for north
Orem. Which means that a large number of them are both unvaccinated and unmasked.
I don’t find church to be a very safe place. With the aerosol spread of this
virus, any indoor gathering with the unmasked is a potentially dangerous event.
The last time I attended Sunday School was shortly before the First Presidency
email came. We sat in a poorly ventilated Relief Society room with dozens of
unmasked ward members. I didn’t feel safe, even though I’ve been vaccinated and
was wearing a mask. I haven’t attended Sunday School since, and I don’t attend
elders quorum anymore either, even though it is held in the much larger
cultural hall. Part of the reason is that I struggle now being around my fellow
ward members.
When I go to church now, I can’t
help judging. We all judge. We really can’t help it, and we need to do so for a
variety of reasons, one of them being our personal safety. But I look around at
all the people who received the same email I did, and I wonder what arguments
they use for ignoring both the prophet and the medical professionals who advise
them to behave differently than they are. Now, when I see my fellow ward
members, I don’t see friends and fellow Saints. I see people I can’t trust.
This is difficult for me. No matter what bureaucratic, doctrinal, or historical
stumbling blocks I’ve encountered in Mormonism, I’ve always had my ward. But
not anymore. What do you do when you can no longer trust your fellow ward
members? I still attend sacrament meeting, but it depresses me. Not because of
anything said from the pulpit, but because I am surrounded by people I can’t
trust.
Some people say that trust has to
be earned. They are wrong. Unless we trust each other implicitly, our society
doesn’t work. Our economic and social relationships are all based on trust. No,
trust doesn’t have to be earned. We generally trust others, within reason, until
they prove to us that they cannot be trusted. Unfortunately, I’ve reached that
point with my ward. I’ve learned this summer that I can’t trust the majority of
them to do the right thing, and when you can’t trust someone to do the right
thing, the relationship with that person is broken. I feel broken. My ward has
disappointed me in such a fundamental way that I doubt I will ever feel the
same toward most members.
I’ve said it before, but it’s
still true: many Mormons are more Republican than they are Mormon. The pandemic
has only made this more obvious. When a political party goes off the rails to
the degree that it encourages its constituents to disbelieve facts and believe
instead all sorts of nonsense and lies, it should be abandoned rather than embraced.
But this is not happening. The disinformation is too prevalent on the right and
too tribal. Ignorance and selfishness have carried the day in the Republican
Party and, hence, in many LDS wards. I now am sad when I attend church, and I
don’t see this changing anytime soon.
