I’m proud to be a Mormon. No, “proud” is the wrong word; “fortunate” is better.
I have not attended church meetings in decades, but I’m fortunate to come from a Mormon heritage, a Mormon upbringing, and a Mormon outlook. There is only one Mormon Church, only one Mormon history, and only one Mormon value system. The Mormon Church may be – and certainly is – imperfect, but it is unique.
When the 2002 Winter Olympics were in town, my wife and I walked along Main Street one evening. Behind us was a group from New York. One said to the others: “They have sixty thousand volunteers. If we held the Olympics in New York, we’d be lucky to get sixty volunteers.”
In May 1983, I was at work on Social Hall Avenue. When I broke for lunch, gutters on State Street were full of water. By the time I left that evening, hundreds of volunteers lined State Street, placing sandbags to build what would become the State Street river. Other cities find volunteers during emergencies, but not that many, not that quickly, and not that well organized.
After the disastrous hurricane hit Florida recently, Mormon wards in the South organized aid groups. They drove to the Florida panhandle, pitched tents and spent weekends cutting fallen trees, cleaning up debris and helping displaced residents. (A grandson living in Alabama was one of the volunteers.) The Mormon Church also sent truckloads of food and clothing to help stricken residents.
Recently, I searched for stories about my ancestors. Some could not read or write. I found stories of sacrifice, stories of hard work, stories of love, stories of moral integrity, stories of devotion. I did not find many, if any, stories of selfishness and greed. It’s part of my Mormon heritage.
When I was a teenager, my friends and I struggled with Mormon Church policy toward African-Americans. Later, I spent my military years in Georgia. I witnessed the evils of segregation. The experience changed my life. I wrote a sorry excuse of a novel about segregation, about Mormons and about the sins of our fathers.
Eventually, the Mormon Church responded positively to truth and morality and, yes, social pressure. Leaders changed mistaken policies about African-Americans and abolished absurd excuses. The same will happen with struggles over sexual identity and equality of women. Mormons want to be part of the world, not merely in the world. Changes may take too long, but they will come.
My great grandmother was in a polygamous marriage for 10 years. She and her first husband married not because they wanted to but because church leaders insisted. After she helped raise five of her husband’s children, the marriage was “dissolved.” She married my great-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Stoddard. They had two children – one of whom was my amazing grandmother. Today, earthly polygamy is no longer part of Mormonism. Mormons have essentially separated themselves from that misguided practice.
These days, I’m concerned about Mormon friends who support our amoral, self-centered, racist president. But most of us don’t spend much time or energy on politics. We depend on “opinion leaders” for guidance. In Utah, opinion leaders are often Mormon Church lay leaders. I’m confident wise leaders of the church are already searching for ways to change Mormon voting habits without running afoul of church-state complications.
Some of my family members are strongly committed to Mormonism. (One daughter will surely be the first female bishop.) Other family members are disillusioned. But I was taught that disillusion does not make some of us less worthy than others – only different. None of us is judged inferior.
Yes, I’m fortunate to be a Mormon. Church values are part of my heritage, and expecting Mormon flexibility is part of my experience. The LDS Church would grow stronger if leaders focused on values, heritage and flexibility instead of nicknames.
Don Gale.
Don Gale believes the value of an organization is best measured by the actions of its people, not the words of its leaders.