This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
David Musselman can't say his experiment with homelessness three years ago changed many Mormons, but it did change at least one — him.
Flash back to 2013, when Musselman, then bishop of the Taylorsville 4th LDS Ward (congregation), concocted a plan to teach his flock about compassion and empathy. The lay clergyman enlisted a friend, who did makeup for Hollywood films, to transform his clean-cut look into a ragged, dirty, stooped, scarred man of the streets. He then plopped himself down outside his Mormon meetinghouse, along with a box and a sign, asking for food and money.
Even Musselman's wife and five children did not recognize him.
The grizzled man cheerfully called out "Happy Thanksgiving" as some fellow believers averted their eyes and scurried into the building. One attendee told the disguised Musselman he would have to move to the public sidewalk to panhandle, while another invited him inside and, when he declined, brought him a bottle of water.
The chapel filled. The service began. Members found their bishop strangely absent. Fifteen minutes later, the homeless vagrant entered from the back and slowly moved up the aisle to the front. Congregants, even children, watched in startled silence.
"Then the man made a highly unusual request — he wanted to address the congregation — in the middle of the service," The Salt Lake Tribune reported. "The man mumbled at first, then read a verse of a song and said the ward had been nice to him and said he wanted to give something back."
Musselman ripped off his wig to reveal his true identity. From the congregation came an "audible gasp," the bishop told the paper. "I wish I had recorded it. It was unbelievable."
Afterward, some of the adults told Musselman they felt bad about the way they had reacted. They wondered aloud if they were living as Christlike as they professed.
Today, years after his performance, he's not sure his role-playing made a lasting impact. It did, however, reshape the divorce mediator's own view.
"I no longer have feelings of needing to hold them accountable for where they're at in life," Musselman said in a recent interview. "It shouldn't matter how they got there. Just do what you can to help them."
When people ask him why the destitute don't just get a job, he tells them, "I don't know. There are as many reasons why people become homeless as there are homeless ... brokenness [often] sucks the life out of them."
When he was bishop, Musselman sat in LDS welfare meetings, and as various cases were discussed it seemed like some leaders just wanted to complain about giving assistance to those they saw as unworthy recipients instead of focusing on how to help.
"We have too often failed in our religion," he said, "to seek out the ones most in need."
Walking up the chapel aisle that November day as a bedraggled stranger makes judgment impossible, he said. All God's children deserve "some amount of humanity."
Twitter: @religiongal