‘Tis better to obey

In stake conference today, the stake president warned us that we should avoid chat rooms and other similar sites, specifically naming Facebook and MySpace (because of the offensive material some people post on their profiles, along with the danger of getting involved in nasty things). Now, I agree that MySpace is filled with a bunch of garbage, and their graphic design is awful. :) My experience with Facebook has been quite clean and innocent, however, and I don’t think we need to avoid it, but rather use it intelligently.

But I also believe that obeying servants of the Lord is more important. And so, even though I disagree (on one particular level, of course), I just deactivated my Facebook account. It feels good to obey. Sure, it was hard, and I contemplated just ignoring the counsel and pretending like I never heard it, but whatever I may have lost will be made up for in ample measure by the blessings for obedience. And in all reality, I’ll have saved myself all the time I used to spend on editing my profile and all that. There is life outside of Facebook. :)

The question I now must ask myself is, “Is there any other counsel you’ve been given but haven’t obeyed yet?” Time for some introspection…

Interesing. I always thought facebook was rediculous (based primarily on who I knew to be on it) but I never considered it evil. What was it that he specifically objected to? I have been counceled to caution, but never have heard it condemned. Unlike LDS dating sites…

I think he objected to the general class of sites like those (chat rooms, online dating sites, etc.), giving Facebook and MySpace as two examples. And Facebook certainly isn’t as bad as MySpace, but I suppose it won’t be long before bad things start happening. (Entropy, it’s all about entropy. :))

If, then, it is indeed so broad a category, how do you feel it applies to …blogging? Just playing devil’s advocate, but this comment-exchange is similar to chatting; will the entropy reach this far? I am pretty sure that if we wanted to and put the effort into it, a very little deticated cyber-stalking would reveal our respective identities. The question must then be: Is giving up blogging more similar to giving up all soda so as not to drink caffine, or to giving up caffine without being thus commanded?

I hope and pray that there never comes a day when we’re given a commandment to avoid blogging. That would be hard, especially because I see this blog as a way of building the kingdom.

As for whether it applies, let’s look at what is inappropriate/dangerous in MySpace and other online venues. It seems that the defense is two-pronged — 1) we don’t want to be subjected to offensive language/pictures/etc., and these do pop up a lot in chat rooms and on MySpace-ish profiles, and 2) we don’t want to be lured into meeting someone from online who ends up being a psycho serial killer and it’s Game Over for us.

With blogging, I don’t really see 1) as being an issue; sure, there are other people’s blogs, and of course you have to use discretion when visiting them. It’s the same as viewing other websites, and if we say “Don’t view blogs,” we may as well say, “Don’t go on the web at all.” And yet the Church has a website and so I doubt they’ll be saying that. :) I can see some bishops and/or stake presidents being slightly misinformed as to what blogs are and equating them with MySpace, and thus condemning them. In that case, even though the commandment isn’t entirely accurate, does it still hold? Hopefully it’s a moot point and won’t happen.

As for 2), I suppose people could comment and have a discussion similar to those in chat rooms, but again, someone who’s intelligent and in tune with the Spirit won’t have a problem. If someone posts an inappropriate comment on my site, zap! It’s deleted. There’s no temptation for me to try to meet 14-year-old girls via this blog, either. (That’s just sick.)

As for “bad things” starting to happen on Facebook, there are somewhat inappropriate pictures starting to be posted, and I’ve seen offensive language (even on BYU students’ profiles). And now high school students can join in, and that’s where it likely will become an issue; people meet, set up a rendezvous, and one of them isn’t what he said he was. Bad ending.

Whoa, I need to go to class. :) Answering the rest of your comment, yes, it’d be very easy for someone to find out who I am. In fact, I just realized to my surprise that my name isn’t on the site right now — it used to be, on Blogger. Anyway, in answer to the final question: well, caffeine’s certainly bad for the body, and I’d argue that so is soda. Getting into hairy situations online (in any part of cyberspace) is bad, and that’s what we need to avoid, not necessarily any specific medium. TV itself isn’t bad; it’s the trashy shows that are bad. Saying that we should avoid chat rooms, including sites like Facebook and MySpace, is like saying that we should avoid sex-filled soap operas, including shows like The O.C. and Friends. (Okay, so I don’t really know much about what’s going on on TV these days. :)) So it’s not the Internet itself that’s bad; it’s certain places, the Sodoms and Gomorrahs of this digital terrain. Blogging itself isn’t bad, but it can be, if used to improper ends.

In summary: I use blogging to make the world a better place and I think that’s okay. :)

hmmm– what interesting conversations. Personally, my problem with Facebook, of which I have a profile, but will ignore if not discontinue entirely, is that the interactions between people are limited to shallow words and most of it is to merely show how many “friends” you have and where, and to put yourself forth as a light. While this may be the case with a blog, it doesn’t have to be. I can see more of an excuse for people who are lone Mormons with great distances between them and supportive friends having a need for internet friends and relationships, but for people attending BYU, it might be nice to simply have real interaction, instead of wasting time on nternet facades.

When I was on Facebook I saw it mainly as a way to keep in touch with friends whose e-mail addresses I didn’t have. I also considered it as a way to meet new people with similar interests, but in all reality I only met two people, and only one of those is still in touch with me.

But yes, it really was a popularity contest, and I found myself getting overly excited when my number of friends grew from 5 to 85 or so (over the course of several months, mind you). Anyway, there are plenty of other ways to meet people, and I’d rather have people visiting my blogs and websites than a Facebook profile any day. :)

My question is of obedience. Are we obligated to obey, even when we have not had the rightness of the command impressed upon us? I do (I think), but I’m not sure how much of it is simply my respect for their authority, or fear that I am not intune enough to know.

If you know that someone is a servant of the Lord (be it bishop, stake president, apostle prophet), you can trust that whatever they command (when they’re acting in their office, of course — at church, in interviews, in General Conference, etc.) is something you should do, and I’d argue that you wouldn’t need an impression that it’s right, precisely because you’ve already had the impression that they’re a servant of God. (The way I see it, once you’ve established the authenticity of the authority — when they’re speaking in the name of the Lord — then you technically have established the authenticity of the things they say when acting in their priesthood office.)

And even if they perchance have gone astray, the Lord will bless you for it, so it’s safer to obey. Of course it’s good to seek after an impression concurring with what your leader has said, but I don’t know how often it’s actually necessary…

It just seems contridictory sometimes that we won’t know it’s God’s way until we do it, but then we’re not suppose to blindly obey either. That answer seems to be quite reasonable though.

While blind obedience can certainly be a danger, in the context of priesthood leadership I don’t really see it as a problem provided that you can trust the leader (which trust comes from the Spirit). And of course if the leader commands you to do something which feels wrong or completely tangential, then you’d better seek an additional spiritual prompting; but for things that are in line with the teachings of the scriptures and the modern-day prophets, “blind” obedience is actually trust in their call. That’s the way I see it, at least.

What if your priesthood leader is out and out wrong? It’s been written that the prophet will never lead us astray (which I’m willing to allow to encompass the Apostles and even the G.A. for the most part), but I don’r know that bishops, stake presidents, elder’s quorum president’s, and etc. have the same status.

My specific point is that I’ve known some very techno-phobic people that would renounce the Internet outright as evil and to be shunned. Continuing from that extreme, there are those who would be willing to make less extreme, but equally erroneous, claims against some other institution. Such individuals could easily be, and I believe are found, in the offices of stake president and bishop and elder’s quorum president, and so forth.

Being human themselves, they are subject to making incorrect, broadly sweeping statements primarily out of ignorance or fear (or both). They meant well, but not having enough information they came to an incorrect conclusion. This is a large part of why I feel we can always follow our leaders’ counsel and not go wrong because individuals such as them that are genuinely interested in our welfare will proscribe what they perceive as evil and not lead us in a direction that is wrong. However, there are times when they might say one thing and it would have been more appropriate to say it another way, with slightly different terms.

Thus I submit to you that your stake president might have been in this situation. In such a situation, if it were me (and I would suggest the same to you), I would try to arrange a meeting with him and come out and ask him. I would mention that I view it as something like the Internet, capable of good and bad. For me as well, it’s been a chance for me to find people and get in touch with that I might never have had a chance to, otherwise. You can also find bad on it, but you can avoid that like on the Internet. Such a dialogue could only be something helpful, I would think.

The problem I have with just following is that it can cause so many problems, and I see the beginnings of it all too often here at the Y. Just following is what has led to extremist groups like the polygamist fundamentalists or the Islamic terrorist groups. It started out as someone very respectful, maybe even a leader, making one small misleading statement and people not thinking for themselves. By the time it was caught by the mainstream, it was too late for the followers and they split off feeling they were right and the despicable extemism perpetuates itself through ignorance. Having said that, I don’t think that will happen to any measurable degree in the Church or here at BYU, but even stepping onto that path is just simply too dangerous and I believe that we should know better.

Einstein has a quote on the subject (not an apostle, but I think it is still correct). It’s a little more extreme than I would have put it myself, but the heart of the matter is still the same: “He who joyfully marches to music, rank, and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once.”

Thanks for your comments, Shaun. I actually already talked with my stake president (I e-mailed him the week after stake conference), and I feel that he did the right thing for our stake. Sure, Facebook is mostly harmless, except for some of the starting-to-get-inappropriate pictures on people’s profiles and some dirty talk on the wall. But you never know — it could become the next Mos Eisley like MySpace.

And even if it doesn’t, it’s not that great a loss, really. There are other ways to communicate. And even if it were a loss, I can’t deny that when I decided to cancel my account, I felt good. And blind obedience doesn’t create good feelings like that, at least in my experience.

While “just following” certainly isn’t what God has in mind for us, the fact remains that there has to be an element of trust in priesthood leaders or else the whole thing falls apart. If your priesthood leader gives counsel that makes you feel uncomfortable or wrong, then of course it’s your duty to get on your knees and talk with the Lord until you know what to do. Do think for yourself, but remember that the Lord knows what’s best. What if what we think is wrong? It’s happened often and will happen again, and so we absolutely must rely on the Spirit. Again, we do need to use our minds, but not if it estranges us from the Spirit.

I’m not trying to imply that thinking for yourself always means turning a deaf ear to the Spirit, by the way. Certainly not. But it does seem that oftentimes people forget that the Lord’s ways are not our ways, and when we don’t understand the why, it helps to remember that sometimes it’s a test of our faith. Personally, I’d rather err on the side of safety. “Thy will, not mine, be done,” right? Sure, there are technophobes who make broad, sweeping condemnations against technologies that hold great power for both good and evil, but Facebook is not the be-all or end-all of technology, and you’ve got to at least admit the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he’s right.

Yes, but I submit that the trial of your faith could also come in the form of daring to disagree with a leader and even bring it up. This need not be a confrontational situation where faith is shattered in priesthood leadership but an affirmation that we are all human and might say things that aren’t right, even in positions of leadership. If I say something that isn’t right and no one ever brings it up to me, I may not notice it and continue to make the same error or even conclude that I was right.

You are absolutely right that Facebook, mySpace, etc. etc. are not grand things like the Internet itself and that giving it up is not likely to have a measurable effect (though who knows, perhaps by using it to get in touch with an old friend one could find one’s companion). But it’s also impossible for Facebook or mySpace or the Internet itself to be evil. It cannot be, it is merely a concept, a tool. It has no will of its own. Now some people will choose to misuse these tools and bring about…less than good results, but to throw away a potentially very useful concept just because some will use it for evil is a very dangerous path.

It is just too easy to conclude that an object itself is evil and shun it rather than see it for what it really is and if it might be used in beneficial ways. It is because of the easiness of this path that I fear way too many choose to label things and be done with it rather than give it critical thought. Completely cutting out the Internet will help keep pornography and other ill out of our homes in large part, but at what cost? Completely abandoning things like Facebook will help one avoid the evils that come from chat rooms, but it also cuts out arguably one of the best ways to connect with people.

The possibility that a stake president is right is not saying much. It’s the default assumption and with good reason. The great rarity that I ever find myself disagreeing with a leader after careful consideration is a testimony to me of the validity of their authority from God and a great comfort to me. But that comfort can also cause problems. It’s easy to believe something so completely that if something else should come up that gives cause to further scrutinize our belief, no course of action except to acquiesce our previously held belief will feel right or “good”.

This is why I feel that a corrupt Catholic church was able to maintain such a stranglehold on the people for so long in the Dark Ages (in addition to the obvious). They legislated even their very perceptions of the universe and condemning any heretic who would disagree with the doctrinal geocentric model. It was only when people started to think for themselves and challenge their leaders that the Catholic church was able to see its own corruption and begin steps to fix itself.

Again, I don’t think there’s a great danger of us going to this extreme, but I also think it would be a mistake to assume we are immune to that sort of process. As I said, it’s how most every extremist group got started. We would do well to acknowledge that it can happen and then carefully scrutinize our actions to ensure it does not bring us to the same or similar fate.

I don’t know that the Lord would really have that be a trial of our faith — to the contrary, He often commands things that we don’t agree with (Abraham commanded to kill Isaac, the plural marriage commandment in the early days of the Church, etc.). I can’t think of any time when the Lord encourages us to disobey a leader He called. It doesn’t work that way. If you can find any scriptural/historical cases that say otherwise, though, I’m interested in seeing them.

Yes, it’s easy to conclude that an object itself is evil. I’m not saying that social networks are evil. I’m not saying that the concept of MySpace or Facebook is wrong. But it is indeed possible for MySpace to be a seedy place where bad things happen, and ditto for Facebook. Buildings aren’t evil in themselves, but if they house brothels or drug dealerships, then yes, they are places we should avoid. And I disagree that Facebook and MySpace are just concepts. The concept is that people have profiles and can see others’ profiles and message back and forth and add friends and such. But MySpace is a specific implementation of that concept, and as far as cyberspace goes it’s a real place. Not just a concept. The Internet is a concept, but individual sites are real places. I strongly feel that social networks can be used for great good, but I also can see that in many cases they go rotten and become sordid cesspools that contaminate and corrupt those who spend time there. Caution is important.

We actually talked about this in our C.S. Lewis Society meeting yesterday, concerning evolution. It’s all too easy for people to seek ready-made opinions (like TV dinners), accepting them wholesale without really thinking about them for themselves. That’s not what God wants for us. However, there are things that are clearly good and clearly evil and I don’t think God wants us to waste our time debating on them. For example, molesting children is clearly evil, as is worshiping Satan. Is anyone going to claim that “blind obedience” to not practicing these things is folly? I doubt it. On the other hand, a large part of our belief is faith: trusting God and not understanding the why sometimes. Examination then seems to be only necessary in the grey area in between good and evil.

Yes, the Catholic church had problems. But do you really believe that there’s a possibility that the Church could become an extremist group? This is the kingdom of God we’re talking about, and I’m pretty sure He has a solid hold on the reins. Small groups within the Church may splinter off, certainly, but then they’re not affiliated with the Church anymore. As for the Church itself, direct revelation to prophets takes care of the problem of going astray.

Challenging our leaders is not the way things work. That doesn’t make us peons or mindless lemmings, though, precisely because we believe that this whole revelation thing is real and that the Spirit guides both us and the leaders. If this weren’t a religion and there weren’t any revelation from God, then yes, challenging our leaders would be a good and healthy thing, because there would be no guarantee that they were right or even really on our side. But we know God is real, we know the Spirit is real, we know Joseph Smith was a prophet, we know Gordon B. Hinckley is his legitimate successor, and we know that God does call his file leaders in the Church. That doesn’t make them perfect, but it does mean we can trust them, and if they’re wrong, God will make up for that. Faith trumps reason.

And as long as we’re following the Spirit, there’s no danger of going astray. None. It’s only when we stop listening that we fall into darker, clouded paths.

I understand what you are saying and where you are coming from. What it comes down to is a difference in ideologies. You’re asserting that leaders are called and are responsible for that calling. When it entails directing others in one direction or another, they will be held responsible for it and if they were justified in their counsel given. Those choosing to place faith in their leadership are not held responsible for following uninspired counsel and the leader will answer for it.

I am asserting that this is all true. However, I also assert that each person can also know for themselves if the counsel given is right, wrong, or perhaps just muddied. There are examples of this in varied forms. For example, when King David ordered Uriah out into the battle field to be killed so he could have Bathsheba, or D&C 28 when Hiram Page claimed to have the seer stone are two examples that come to mind. In the case of the latter, it seems to me that he wasn’t in an “official” position of leadership in the Church but this was an opportunity to reassert the lines of authority.

When the rebuffing of a leader comes, it always will come from the top down. However, something has to bring it to the attention of the appropriate person. D&C 107, from about verse 58 on details how “cases” are to be heard. It starts out with the bishop, being the common judge in Israel, but also states that if the decision with him is not satisfactory that it can be carried up the line of authority all the way to the First Presidency: “and the most adifficult cases of the church, inasmuch as there is not satisfaction upon the decision of the bishop or judges, it shall be handed over and carried up unto the council of the church, before the Presidency of the High Priesthood” (D&C 107:78).

I believe I erred and did not make it clear what I meant should happen when someone disagrees with a leader. The first step is to come and talk to that leader about it. If that does not seem to resolve the issue, then take the next step up and discuss it with them. If one feels the need, they can go all the way to the First Presidency with it. Of course, if by that time the First Presidency upholds the decision of the original leader, it doesn’t go any higher than that and that decision is final.

There have been plenty of times when a leader said something and my initial reaction was that I disagreed and didn’t feel it was right. After considering it more carefully, I often found myself still disagreeing with it. However, I realized that it was still inspired counsel and something I should follow. I didn’t necessarily have a why (hence my remaining uncertainty about the counsel), but knew I should follow it anyway.

So I’m not saying that reason can trump faith. But I am saying that when “reason” starts throwing up red flags over a comment made that it then deserves further inspection. That use of reason might be a way the Spirit is trying to tell you something isn’t right.

In stake conference last, the stake president gave a talk and made some comments on dating and the like that didn’t really sit well with me. As it turns out, this was true for quite a few people and the Bishop included. Being brought up to him, he then thought about it and consulted with the stake president and the following Sunday we spent the entirety of priesthood discussing the talk and clarifying a few points. The Bishop made it clear he supported the spirit behind the talk, but admitted that some of the points were made a little over-zealously and thus obscured things a little bit.

This is hardly an action that makes me question the authority of the stake president or make me likely to not heed anything he says anymore. Rather, I thought it was a wonderful example of Church government in action and a course of action that belittled no one and allowed all to be edified. We could have taken the talk at face value and there would have been no wrong in following it to the letter, but we would have had that sinking feeling about it. In this matter, we were able to bring up our concern, have it considered and pondered, and then discuss it in ways and terms that then dispelled all doubt and concern from our minds.

This is the sort of action I am suggesting when a question about counsel is given. It’s not okay to then just go off on your own, which the way I have said things implied. You go up the line of authority to discuss your reservations. I have full faith and confidence that if one has any reservation about a comment a leader has made, after going through this process that things will be cleared for that individual. One possibility is that mis-communications are cleared up and the real intention of the comment is refined and brought forward. This is by far the most likely scenario.

But I also want to say that it is still possible that a leader can make a comment or counsel that is incorrect, inadvertantly or otherwise. They’re human and can and will make mistakes, and those mistakes are not limited to just their personal lives.

I believe that each person can know for themselves whether or not what a leader says is right. In the end, we’re all moving towards being able to know the truth of all things ourselves anyways. We’re a long way from that point, obviously, but I don’t think it means we can’t know when counsel given to us is right or bogus. We may not be given to know the why of it, but the validity of it I think can always be known.

I believe we have our capacities of thought, reason, and personal guidance from the Spirit in order to be able to know and find out the truth of all things as they pertain to us. If at any time something causes these things to throw red flags then we need to get to the root of it and find out why. It might be, and most likely is, simply the natural man rebelling. However, it could also be a warning that something isn’t right. At that point, in order to satisfy that concern one might have to take the often very unpopular action of disagreeing with a leader and seeking further explanation.

What probably bothers me most in the Church is the way that people are sometimes treated for having, even momentarily, a dissenting opinion. Instead of inviting a dialogue about the issue and seeking to understand the root of the confusion or dissent, many members will viciously attack that person and immediately call into question their faithfulness and flippantly suggest that they need to repent. I can see no excuse for this type of behaviour anything close to it. The only reason that I can figure people even react this way is out of fear of question. This is exactly what happened to Galileo for having the heretical gall to suggest that the Earth was not the center of the solar system.

To sum it up, I believe very strongly in a quote of his:

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.” ~Galileo Galilei

I think I didn’t make it clear enough that I do think we can get confirmations of any counsel given — it’s just that getting that confirmation may not be necessary all the time. But it’s always an option, and if something doesn’t sit right with you, in that case I’d say it becomes mandatory.

And yes, I completely agree with you that if something still doesn’t sit right, we have an obligation to talk to that church leader about it, and take it up the channels if necessary. (While listening to the Spirit the whole time, of course — remember Thomas B. Marsh and the milk strippings?) If the stake president had banned blogging, for instance, I would have scheduled an interview as soon as I possibly could, because I feel strongly that blogging isn’t something that should be banned. (I suppose the reason I didn’t do so with Facebook is that I really don’t care about it all that much, and I was kind of glad to have a reason to get rid of my profile so I’d stop wasting time on it. So much for objectivity… :))

I suppose my main cause of earlier disagreement was in the case of natural man rebelling against God-given counsel. But what you’ve outlined here does a good job of taking care of all the cases I can think of. Seems like we’ve been looking at the same thing from different angles, with mine partially obscured. And I’m glad I was wrong in what I thought you meant. :) In reading your third-to-last paragraph, I hope I didn’t come across as attacking you for what could be seen as a slightly “dissenting” opinion or as questioning your faithfulness or anything like that. If I did, I’m sorry — I didn’t mean it that way.

Anyway, that Galileo quote is great. Amen to it.

Oh you totally threw the gauntlet down. The only way I can see to resolve this is a duel…with SPOONS!

To (mis)quote Crocodile Dundee, “That’s not a spoon. This is a spoon.” Spoons to the ready!

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