Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

KiwiMormon

Home
About

Home
Latter-day Saint
Saving Zion from America: Theorizing in the aftermath

Saving Zion from America: Theorizing in the aftermath

Last updated on: July 8, 2014 at 5:34 pm by Gina Colvin

Saving Zion from America: Theorizing in the aftermath 2014-07-08T17:34:57+12:00 Gina Colvin

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’ve been thinking about Zion.

I am one of a few fortunate Mormon feminists, I have a bishop and a Stake President who are first and foremost disposed toward love and mercy before judgment and punishment. They don’t agree with me on several points, but what defines their ministry is inclusion rather than exclusion. Despite our differences of opinion on some matters I have never felt unwanted, or unneeded. I have never seen a flicker of irritation cross their faces, nor have they expressed their love for me through gritted teeth, with words that don’t match the feeling in their eyes. As a consequence I feel that I belong at church. They have allowed me to be me, and have genuinely loved and listened to me and my concerns – and their example has in turn inspired me. I feel that despite my more radical tendencies, despite the fact that I am admittedly and openly full of challenge, I have a place in the Zion of my dreams.

But I know of plenty of men and women who have lost in the game of leadership roulette. I also know of many who are suffering because they have no power to influence, talk back to, or question the kind of leadership they are subject to. Their Zion seems to be predicated only upon obedience or exclusion, deference or excision.

But, while I am currently fortunate, I may not be in the future. Next month, next year or in the years to come I could have a terrifying bishop, or a misogynistic stake president who love their authority more than they love me. In which case my efforts to build Zion will be unwanted and I will be cast aside, my longing for Zion lost in a maelstrom of recrimination.

My question is: How welcome are those who raise a challenge to the church to be better, to be more like Zion? How welcome are those who want to make Mormonism a home for the lost and the weary, a place where regardless of class, gender or race ‘all alike unto God’? It would appear that some in their pursuit of Zion believe that it is not necessary to accommodate the outspoken or those who are no longer satisfied with the status quo. What follows is a list of practices and procedures currently supported and sustained by the powers that be in the management of the church’s current crisis – perhaps in an effort to establish Zion?:

Excommunication
Disfellowshipment
Withdrawal of Temple Recommends
Informal and formal probation
Warnings
Silencing and gagging
Surveying either through self or informants.
Social shunning

In my analysis of this situation it would therefore seem that there are enough people in the LDS church who believe that Zion can only come forth in an atmosphere of paranoia, fear, discipline and ecclesiastical terror.

I would however venture to implicate a broader ideological strain in Mormonism for this growing fear. America, I would argue has spawned this church, it hosts this church, it produces it leaders, and as an institution it is legally constituted as an American corporation. Thus, by virtue of America, Mormon culture is afflicted by a tendency toward binary thinking rather than a broad and nuanced way of imagining a world or a Zion that is motivated toward generating a common social good. Rather, the tendency toward imagining a world constituted as in-out; black-white; North-South,; Democrat-Republican; rich-poor; Christian-Muslim; true-false; capitalist-socialist; straight-gay; patriot–traitor; American- un-American, right-wrong afflicts and binds America to a narrowly defined ideology and a poverty stricken discourse.

Despite that, I choose to believe in a Zion that transcends binaries and includes rather than excludes, privileges the least of us and measures its social arrangements based upon its ability to respond generously to otherness, individual need, and diversity; a Zion that collapses hierarchies and eschews the age old tendency toward spiritual wickedness in high places.

Historically ‘America’ has been conflated with ‘the promised land’ or ‘Zion’, but as an observer of America for most of my life if America once had some moral high ground to stand on, some justification for calling itself so, I would argue that it can no longer do so with impunity. The America of the recent past has proven itself to be cruel in a kind of hokey sort of dangerous, surreal way. With unfettered access to guns; a star spangled flag; soaring aphorisms about America this and America that, the USA has brazenly hitched itself to God. With this cacophony of maxims and cultural practices at their discursive disposal America can feel justified in bombing a foreign territory to smithereens in the morning and washing all of the guilt down with a, prayer, a hamburger, fries and coke at the end of the day, while watching a favorite Disney movie. In the same way, the church that calls itself Zion, the church that America spawned can excommunicate a woman for wanting equal rights for females, and the men flicking the switch on her can profess they are doing it out of love – with a gentle smile and a well-meaning squeeze of the hand.

All of this cultural incongruity coupled with a sprawling sea of untrained, callow and often misguided male guardians of church law and order does not inspire tremendous amounts of faith in the patriarchy we Mormon feminists are supposed to be swooning over in aphorisms of divine deference. Neither does it inspire faith that Zion is near. Rather, injustice, exclusivity, and the use of arbitrary and punitive power might make well-suited bedfellows but in the long run they don’t necessarily win one moral authority and respect. If anything, the LDS church has most recently lost respect in the same way that America has lost international veneration over its devastatingly misguided actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia etc. etc. If America is not Zion, and the church is bound up with America, then Zion is not possible without taking the church and Jesus out of America, perhaps physically but definitely symbolically.

All of this comes back to my original point that presently the church doesn’t feel, look or behave like Zion, perhaps in small pockets and places, here and there, but sadly not generally, not universally.

In the church’s unquestioned support for the patriarchal status quo it is has unwittingly confirmed the worst suspicions of its detractors – that certainty in the status quo is its own form of tyranny, that Mormon women really do have something to complain about, and that Zion is a long, long way away.

Mormon church discourse

Mormon Conservatism

Mormon corporate culture

Mormon Cultural Identity

Mormon feminist politics

Mormons feminism

New Zealand and US Mormonism

New Zealand Mormon Culture

New Zealand Mormon Feminist Thought

Ordain Women

tyranny of certainty

Previous Post

June 26, 2014

Burying Shirley, Unexcommunicating Kate

Next Post

July 20, 2014 A Conversation with Kate Kelly: Feminist and Optimist

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Thoughtful Faith Adultery Apostasy Brigham Young BYU Church Culture Church Leadership Clergy Sex Abuse Community of Christ Divorce Excommunication faith crisis Faith Development Heavenly mother Heresy Indigenous Mormon James Fowler Jesus Christ John Dehlin Joseph Smith Kate Kelly LDS Church Politics LDS doctrine LDS Essays LGTB Maori Mormon marriage and family Mitt Romney Mormon church discourse Mormon church history Mormon Conservatism Mormon corporate culture Mormon Cultural Identity Mormon feminist politics Mormon finances mormon matters podcast Mormon Political Economy Mormons feminism New Zealand and US Mormonism New Zealand Mormon Culture New Zealand Mormon Feminist Thought New Zealand temple Official Declaration Two Ordain Women Pastoral Theology for Mormons phillip barlow Polygamy Practical Theology Prayer Protect LDS Children Racism in the LDS church Sexual Abuse temple recommend temple recommend interview Temples tyranny of certainty Uncategorized why mormons leave

Select a Month April 2020 December 2019 March 2019 December 2018 October 2018 September 2018 June 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 August 2016 May 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 March 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which book is known as the "Weeping Prophet's" book?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Ezekiel