LDS SSA Conference

Evergreen International, a support organization for Mormons dealing with same-sex attraction (SSA) issues, just held its annual conference in SLC, as reported in this article in the Deseret News. While not "officially" affiliated with the Church, it's pretty clear Evergreen has close ties to the Church: the conference was held in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in SLC, a GA speaker is listed on the conference agenda, and "ecclesiastical leaders" are given free admission to most sessions.

On the postive side, it's nice the Church bends over backwards to support an LDS organization that tries to understand SSA in terms other than sin and condemnation. While official LDS statements and pronouncements always qualify their "hate the sin" counsel with a "but love the sinner" clause, popular Mormon culture (i.e., Utah and the general membership of the Church) pretty much just takes "hate the sin" and runs with it. Perhaps more overt support for Evergreen, along with Ensign articles such as the recent piece by a gay Mormon, is an attempt by leaders to move the membership toward a more sophisticated understanding of this increasingly visible issue. See also the FAIR presentation that I blogged on a couple of weeks ago.

Interestingly, a close reading of the Deseret News article shows that dealing with other Mormons is at least as big a problem for these people as dealing with their SSA. For example, a middle-aged woman is quoted as saying, "In the Relief Society, I felt if they really knew what I was struggling with, they wouldn't want me around." The unacknowledged problem seems to be that many Mormons are covertly following a "hate the sin and hate the sinner" approach. Personally, I can't understand why anyone who figures out they are gay would possibly decide to stick around the LDS Church to be the village scapegoat when they can find sincere Christian support and understanding from any of several other denominations.

Comments

[Clark]

"Personally, I can't understand why anyone who figures out they are gay would possibly decide to stick around the LDS Church to be the village scapegoat when they can find sincere Christian support and understanding from any of several other denominations."

Presumably their testimony?

[Dave]

Yes, but that's too simple. First, attending church somewhere else doesn't negate their testimony or religious convictions, it simply gives them access to Christian understanding and support they don't get in most LDS congregations. An LDS testimony doesn't prevent them from attending church elsewhere. So simply invoking testimony doesn't explain why they cling.

Second, how do they maintain a testimony in the face of rejection? How do they maintain a testimony in the face of disconfirming facts or experience? It's clear we understand the role of "fellowshipping" in developing and strengthening a testimony. So by the same process, the unfellowshipping and rejection gays often appear to feel should cause them to reorient their religious convictions toward another denomination or belief system. It no doubt does in at least some cases.

[Clark Goble]

I think a lot of people go to church not because they have a good experience there but because of their testimony. I can think of periods in my own life like that. I think there is a certain Mormon mindset that does many things because it is holding ones testimony in the face of opposition. For some people that isn't enough. And I certainly can understand how social pressures can both keep people from church and weaken a potentially strong testimony.

But I'm not sure everyone goes to church for fellowship. In a lot of faiths, people merely show up as a kind of ordinance or expected ritual and couldn't care less about fellowship. (I can think of friends who were Catholic or Anglican who did this) Of course just meeting together is a kind of fellowship, but not the kind I think you are talking about.