“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”  Mark Twain

Every so often, the idea that there’s nothing new to talk about in Mormon internet discussions comes up.  Someone will state that we’ve said all there is to say, the audience is waning, people have worked out their opinions, etc.  What do you think?  And if it is dying, does it go out with a whimper or a bang?

Discuss.

For that matter, I think people can’t say “coupon” correct half the time.

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Maybe this is a Utah thing, but I hate how some people say “root”.

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What are some other words commonly mispronounced?

Conflict Management Styles

First let’s look at the data.  The study in the article is based on a student self-assessment and compares the responses of students in the midwest and Texas with those in Weber State. Comparisons are also made distilling only the data from those raised in Utah vs. not Utah-raised and those raised LDS vs. not LDS-raised.  The highest instance of avoidance as the prevalent conflict strategy is LDS + Utah raised (a score of 9.1).

Here is an overview of the five conflict management styles:

• Collaborate.  (win-win)  Solutions optimize the result for all parties involved.  Both sides get what they want; negative feelings are minimized.  Pros:  High mutual trust, creates strong commitments.  Cons:  Time and energy consuming.  Collaboration requires both parties clearly expressing their needs and listening well to ensure a solution meets both sets of needs.
• Compete.  (win-lose)  Authoritarian approach.  Pros:  Quick solutions.  Cons:  Low trust, low commitment, breeds hostility.  In this approach, one party (often with more power than the other) forces his or her will on others.
• Avoid.  (lose-lose)  Non-confrontational approach.  Pros:  Postpones the difficulty, conflicts don’t escalate.  Cons:  Problems go unaddressed and unresolved.  This approach involves walking away from conflict, pretending it doesn’t exist or simply refusing to engage in dialogue to resolve it.
• Accommodate.  (lose-win)  One side gives in to maintain the relationship.  Pros:  Minimizes injury when one side is more powerful; relationships are maintained at a cost.  Cons:  Breeds resentment, exploits the weak.  Rather than one side imposing his/her will on the other party, one person suborns their own interests entirely in favor of “keeping the peace” by meeting the other person’s needs.  We sometimes call this being a doormat.
• Compromise.  (partial win-partial win)  Middle ground approach.  Pros:  Useful in complex situations with no simple solutions, all parties are equal in power.  Cons:  No one is ever really satisfied; yields suboptimal solutions.  In this approach, both parties’ needs are known, but a solution requires that each one give up something.  Some needs of both are met in the process.

According to the study, the 286 samples from the midwest and Texas ranked their conflict style preferences as follows:

• Compromise (7.9), Collaborate (7.6), Compete (6.1), Accommodate (4.4), and Avoid (4.0) coming in very last.  

By contrast, a Weber State sample of 157 showed the following preference ranking:  Avoid (7.5), Compromise (6.8), Collaborate (6.0), Accommodate (5.6), Compete (4.1).  When the sample was distilled to only those who were raised LDS in Utah, the strategy preferences were as follows:  Avoid (9.1), Compromise (7.7), Accommodate (5.7), Collaborate (4.1), Compete (3.3).

Avoidance and Passive Aggression

The article uses the terms avoidance and passive-aggression interchangeably.  While there is undoubtedly some correlation, these terms are not truly synonymous.  Are Wasatch front Mormons generally more passive-aggressive than the rest of the country (as is posited in the article) or are they simply more prone to use avoidance in conflict situations?  From the article:

A passive-aggressive person will generally deploy such behavioral tactics as: keeping one’s distance and remaining silent or aloof; hiding one’s true thoughts, feelings, or emotions; suppressing, setting aside, or ignoring issues that otherwise should be addressed; postponing or ignoring decisions; resisting change and otherwise championing the status quo; citing rules, policies, procedures, or higher authority as both a defensive and offensive tactic; and providing little meaningful or worthwhile feedback.

I also noted this comment from co-blogger Jeff Spector on a post four years ago about high power-distance index in the church:

I find that church members can have a passive-aggressive nature to them where they act as though they follow, but in reality do not. They pick and chose how and what they will do and make excuses for why they don’t do some things or believe some things. – Jeff Spector

What he is describing is something we’ve all encountered plenty in the church.  Is it more prevalent in Utah?  I can’t say for sure, but when my brother-in-law who is from New Jersey came to stay with my husband and me in Utah (many years ago), he asked us how we dealt with all the complacency of Utah Mormons.  I suspect how we dealt with it was by being complacent ourselves.

Power Distance Index

The author puts forward three working hypotheses for the prevalence of avoidance as a strategy among Wasatch front Mormons:

1. A simplistic interpretation of 3 Nephi 11:29, equating contention with being “of the devil,” and conflating all conflict into “contention.”
2. A culture of obedience and submission.
3. Deference to church leaders and the power-distance index (PDI), which I also blogged about here.

Obviously there is anecdotal evidence to support the above theories.  High PDI cultures are ones in which decision making is concentrated at the highest levels; in low PDI cultures, there is an egalitarian approach to decision making.  High PDI cultures correlate with conflict avoidance because there is a sense of powerlessness.  However, a high PDI culture can also foster a lack of ownership at the lower levels because their input is not solicited or valued.  Is that because of the members or the leaders?  The article puts the onus squarely on church leaders.

We must let Church leaders know that we are watching  them in this regard, and that we will hold them accountable for the ways in which they shape LDS culture and tradition.

But I believe this is just another way to defer our own responsibility.  We could instead just not conform to stupid stuff.  We could learn to live the actual gospel, not just to pretend for the sake of not being called out.

we can decide that as a matter of principle and conscience, any time a male’s name is put forward to fill a calling for which women are by policy excluded, we should seriously consider registering an opposing vote. There is no formal Church rule or policy against exercising our franchise as members to cast an oppositional vote; we simply aren’t used to it. And after the meeting, when we are inevitably taken aside by church leaders and asked to explain our dissenting vote, we can share our reservations about the practice of staffing nonpriesthood callings only with males.

I have a couple of problems with this suggestion.  First, members may or may not view these callings the same way the author does.  Secondly, in a high PDI culture, like the one being described, local leaders don’t have the ability to make changes any more than members do.  Why are we holding these low level leaders accountable in this way vs. raising issues to the source itself?  It’s possible that the culture is so high PDI that we don’t allow members to provide input, but that input will come out in other ways.  Like mercury in the desert, if you step on it, it will reform elsewhere.  Hence, the bloggernacle.

Face Negotiation

I immediately thought of another parallel based on my experience living in Asia:  Face Negotiation.  Working with some Asian cultures, there is a strong expectation that leaders will take responsibility for all decision making and take care of the employees.  The employees are often reluctant or simply unskilled at providing input because in their authoritarian culture, that is not expected.  Decades of submitting to authority and deferring to teachers and leaders results in lack of engagement, lack of accountability, and lack of ideas.  This creates conflict between western styles that have a high expectation for employee input and involvement in decision making and eastern styles that haven’t developed these skills and have higher expectations of leaders than themselves.  Sound familiar?

Face negotiation is not common in the United States where individualism dominates.  For example, our news stories are often critical of our leaders or put forward alternate ideas.  We don’t necessarily assume that peopleofwalmart.com is an indictment of us personally by association.  We have the learned ability to distance ourselves from policies and ideas that we don’t like about American culture.

Mormonism may have a tribal identity that trumps individual concerns.  Here’s a quick overview of face negotiation theory:

People from collectivistic cultures usually adopt conflict styles of avoiding or integrating because the “mutual face” or the face of the group is the top concern. People from an individualistic culture adopt a conflict style of dominating because their main concern is maintaining self face because they have a “face” independent from that of the group. . . in collectivist cultures, the face of the group is more important than any individual face in that group. In individualist cultures, the face of the individual is more important than the face of the group.

Something that invariably comes up when there is a Mormon moment that goes viral is that people wish it weren’t public, and they may even attack the insider who “leaked” the story.  People don’t want issues to be published or conflicts to be known.  Is this because of the potential damage to missionary work or is it just group loyalty?  I posit that it is the latter because the focus is not on actually understanding and addressing issues unpalatable to outsiders.

Individualistic cultures usually see obliging and avoiding conflict styles as negatively disengaged, favoring instead more direct forms of conflict.  Collectivistic cultures see these [conflict avoidance strategies] as relevant and viable methods of dealing with conflict employing them in an attempt to protect mutual-face interest. Collectivistic cultures view more direct means of conflict communication as negative.

What are some of the “direct” conflict styles that threaten group face?  Activism, publicity, and blogging are three that come to mind.  Going back to the 5 conflict styles, these are examples of individuals articulating their unmet needs.  And for some, that seems to be sinful.  Whatever elevates individual interest above group interest is a threat.

Discuss.

___________________________________________________________________________

[1] Michael J. Stevens “Passive-aggression Among the Latter-day Saints,” Sunstone Issue 170.

CREMATION. See DEATH, FUNERALS, GRAVES. Cremation of the dead is no part of the gospel; it is a practice which has been avoided by the saints in all ages. The Church today counsels its members not to cremate their dead. Such a procedure would find gospel acceptance only under the most extraordinary and unusual circumstances. Wherever possible the dead should be consigned to the earth, and nothing should be done that is destructive to the body; that should be left to nature, “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Gen 3:19)

Even though McConkie says “The Church today counsels its members not to cremate their dead,” I thought it would be interesting to see what the church actually says. The Ensign from 1991 is softer on the topic than McConkie, but it does seem to agree with him on certain parts. The article emphasizes that this is not the official church position.

Where do Latter-day Saints fit into this picture? We reaffirm the perspective that the body is good and, as a creation of God, is to be respected. But as the Church has moved into nations other than the United States, there has been recognition that cultural practices differ. Generally, Latter-day Saints in the Western world have felt that nothing should be done which is destructive to the body. That should be left to nature. Church leaders have counseled that only in unusual circumstances or where required by law should cremation take place. ¹¹

Ultimately, after consultation with the Lord and with priesthood leaders, the family must decide what to do. If the person has been endowed, some special instructions are available for the family from local priesthood leaders. Even if a body is cremated, a funeral service may be held if the ashes are buried or deposited in a mausoleum. ¹²

Where there is no overriding reason to cremate, burial is still the preferred method of handling our dead. In the end, however, we should remember that the resurrection will take place by the power of God, who created the heavens and the earth. Ultimately, whether a person’s body was buried at sea, destroyed in combat or an accident, intentionally cremated, or buried in a grave, the person will be resurrected.

I was surprised to see a pretty impressive history of cremation in the Ensign.

The earliest regular cremations in the Middle East seem to have been among the Hittites (c. 1740–1190 B.C.) ² and the Philistines (c. 1200 B.C.) ³Even so, cremation was paralleled in both civilizations by the practice of burial. However, in Hindu and Greek thought, cremation pointed to the impurity of the body. Fire was seen as the vehicle of regeneration or rebirth. ⁴

In Asia, the custom received wider acceptance after the Buddha was cremated. Since he set the example, many Buddhist countries such as Indochina, Korea, and Japan practice cremation. ⁵ (Interestingly, cremation was not popular in China, probably because of the strong Confucian influence, which emphasized respect for one’s ancestors.) In Japan, the first recorded cremation was that of the monk Dosho in A.D. 700, an example which was followed by the Empress Jito in A.D. 704, which gave imperial sanction to the practice. Even so, cremation declined in medieval Japan.

In the West, cremation was common among the Greeks and the Romans. It was the mode by which the bodies of the Caesars were destroyed. ⁶

Among the Jews, cremation was generally not practiced. The Mishnah forbids cremation as an act of idolatry. ⁷ In those rare instances when cremation did take place, it was a sign of unrighteousness (see Amos 6:10) or of punishment due a criminal. (See Lev. 20:14, Lev. 21:9; Josh. 7:25.) ⁸

Christianity likewise opposed cremation. This reluctance to cremate can basically be traced to the Jewish and Christian belief that when God created the body and all other things, he pronounced them “very good.” (Gen. 1:31.) The body was God’s creation and, according to Christians, it would rise with the spirit in the resurrection. Thus, to cremate it would be an act of disrespect before God.

A change occurred, however, in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The unsanitary conditions of many cemeteries in western Europe caused people to reassess the way they treated their dead. Movements recommending cremation began around 1860, and in 1884 a judicial decision legalized cremation in Britain. France legalized it in 1889, and today it is legal in more than three-fourths of the world’s nations. The reasons are widely known—cremation is hygienic, requires little land, and is appropriate to rapidly growing urban areas. ⁹ Today, 10 percent of the dead are cremated in the United States, 20 percent in Canada, and 60 percent in Britain. ¹⁰

So what is official church policy? Now that the Handbook of Instructions is available on the internet, here’s what it says.

Cremation

The Church does not normally encourage cremation. The family of the deceased must decide whether the body should be cremated, taking into account any laws governing burial or cremation. In some countries, the law requires cremation.

Where possible, the body of a deceased member who has been endowed should be dressed in temple clothing when it is cremated. A funeral service may be held (see 18.6).

From my experience, funerals are unnecessarily expensive. Is it really necessary to spend over a thousand dollars on a coffin (and that’s according to the discount website Best Price Caskets)? Then you can spend $895-$7195 on a burial vault. Some cemeteries require a vault because if the coffin collapses under the weight of the dirt, the ground sinks. A vault keeps the ground level for mowing the lawn. But funeral homes will try to sell you on the idea that some vaults prevent moisture from entering the coffin. Is this really a good idea? It slows down decomposition. Do we really care if water gets in the coffin? I don’t. Of course funeral homes try to sell you a lot of services when you’re most vulnerable, and it can really add up.

Cremation on the other hand is generally less expensive. When I die, I don’t want my family wasting money burying me, and I’m open to the idea of cremation. What are your thoughts on cremation?

Discuss.

They do not speak my religious language, and so my religious symbols are as meaningless to them as the religious symbols they may enter the house wearing — or the festivals they are absent to celebrate — have often been to me.

The ability to recognize common meanings in religious symbols without having to “translate” the concepts into words provides a good check on how closely religious communities remain related. If you see a symbol and can more or less intuitively understand much of what it means to the person beside you, you are both probably part of the same community, or at least closely related communities. However, if you hear that person offer an explanation of the meaning that would never occur to you in a million years, you can take it for granted that your two communities have diverged. Like someone famously said about the Americans and the British: “They are two peoples divided by a common language.”

The photo at the top of the post is of a “grove” behind the rostrum at the Community of Christ USA National Conference specifically built as a worship setting for the conference. (I previously wrote about the events of that conference that offered rights of ordination, marriage, and commitment ceremonies to LGBT members of the church in the United States here.) The symbolism of the “aspen grove” was one of the emphases in the early publicity releases of the church on the conference (which is why the photo got printed in local Kansas City media in the first place). It was also the emphasis in a “worship reflection” order of worship made available for use by congregations throughout the USA after the conference as part of the effort to minimize disunity following the results of the conference.

Traditional Restorationists — of either the LDS or RLDS variety — will easily connect the grove in the conference with the grove where the First Vision occurred (shown in a 20th Century photograph to the right). Of course, they might say, the Community of Christ is seeking wisdom from God in the sense of the New Testament Book of James! How appropriate to build the symbol of the grove into the worship setting of the conference!

However, that was not the symbolism of the “grove” that the leaders of the church wanted emphasized in either the media releases or the worship reflection. What they wanted emphasized was the “aspen-ness” of the grove. Quoting from the worship reflection:

“We gather for worship today in a grove of aspen. Aspen trees only grow in community; they cannot grow alone. Though they appear to be separate trees, they are connected by their roots and in fact an entire grove of aspen trees, though they appear many, is really one organism, one body. Their deep roots give them the strength to weather difficult times and to reach the full potential that the Creator intended. Connected this way, aspen groves endure for many thousands of years.

“And so, we find ourselves here in the grove – the place where we gather together to discover God’s will for the church. We have been here before, and know that God is faithful and will meet us here again. We know that every encounter with God, every touch of the Savior, every dance with the Holy Spirit leads us into the unfamiliar future. God will meet us there, too, as we are being rooted and grounded in love.”

The phrase “we have been here before” in the second paragraph can arguably refer to the First Vision — if you are familiar with the First Vision from some other source. Of course, if you wanted to interpret it solely in light of the first paragraph, you could do that as well and end up with only a generalized statement of God’s faithfulness to all peoples and all places.

It is the first paragraph that carries the main message — that is pretty standard training for marketing/communications professionals — and was the only part of the related press releases that was noted by local media. The nature of aspen trees is a fairly obscure aspect of botany for a main message, and so the intended symbolism had to be explained for the media and, indeed, for the church as a whole.

When the casual observer goes into a woods in the northeastern United States where Joseph Smith lived, he or she probably can’t tell whether the trees are aspen, birch, or oak, let alone whether any aspens present are generated by the fall of seeds like other trees (which, of course, is how every wild aspen grove starts originally) or as clonal communities from the root system. You have to stretch your thinking a lot to see the aspen grove as your best symbol of a community that is so interconnected that it endures through all things.

Perhaps that is what the Community of Christ means when it speaks of the need to “go deeper” into the meaning of our religious sacraments, scriptures, and symbols. “Going deeper” can always uncover greater theological insights, because we deal with a topic, God, that is inherently infinite. But the aspects of the infinite that we discover are also conditioned by the biases we bring to the decision of what we look to see first. In other words, preconceptions can cause Americans to wind up with “boot” being a symbol for a heavy-duty foot covering, while the British can conclude that a “boot” is a rear storage compartment in an automobile. To which the American will reply, no, the rear storage compartment of an automobile is a trunk, and the British will retort that a trunk is a large box for household goods. Too much of that, and the two peoples can no longer understand each other.

Let me “go deeper” into the meaning of an aspen grove, too, but along a different axis. Aspens can grow perfectly well by themselves. They are used in the Great Lakes area, for example, to line long driveways or provide shade in big lawns in new developments because they grow fast and do not leave lower branches alive as obstacles. Neither do they require high-quality soils. The only special care that is required to keep them exactly where you put them is the need to mow down the little aspens that sprout near the base of the original trees for a few years — until the shade of the original kills them itself.

Because that’s why the aspen evolved the trick of cloning little copies of itself from its roots, and why most of the root system grows almost horizontally, contrary to what the press release emphasizes. If you are aspen, you can’t behave like birch or oak or maple or hickory or evergreen. The aspen is so intolerant of shade, it must literally escape from its “parent” tree or die. An individual must grow straight skyward and not spread out, lest there is no sunlight left for its clones. And the seeds it generates must find open territory, not forest underbrush, to sprout successfully.

It is a tree that appears early in forest succession, only to eventually give way to hardwood species more tolerant of shade. Groves can indeed survive for thousands of years, but not because they are especially good at weathering hard conditions, or because of any special affinity for deep-rootedness. They survive for such time spans only where there is constant disruption by things like fire forcing the local forest to “start over”.  (Such disruption has been provided in the Northeast during more recent US history by clearing or logging most of the earlier hardwood forests to meet the needs of European settlers or importers for wood.)

So what is the grove to symbolize to someone in the Restoration? Is it to be defined as the place we go when we lack wisdom and must ask of God? Is it to be the symbol of enduring as a single, connected community through all things on into times to come? Or is it to be a symbol of the need to constantly disrupt or escape the environment that gave us religious birth before the taller status of our predecessors cuts off our own access to the light?

What does seem clear to me is that if the Community of Christ has reached the point where any one of those meanings is intuitively obvious to some of us, while either of the other meanings strike others of us as requiring a Rosetta Stone to process, than the existence of separate communities within the body is a fait accompli, not merely a dread for the future. Then, our languages have been confounded.

And there is a Mormon scripture about the importance of avoiding that outcome, too, in Ether 1:34-37:

34 And the brother of Jared being a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord, Jared, his brother, said unto him: Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not understand our words.

35 And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon Jared; therefore he did not confound the language of Jared; and Jared and his brother were not confounded.

36 Then Jared said unto his brother: Cry again unto the Lord, and it may be that he will turn away his anger from them who are our friends, that he confound not their language.

37 And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon their friends and their families also, that they were not confounded.

May it be so.

The next phase of the trial involve whether she gets the death penalty or not. That was supposed to start yesterday. However, Jody, always the master manipulator, declared in a TV interview that she rather be dead sooner than later than spending the rest of her life in jail, she is no on suicide watch.

The Church and its teaching, particularly on chastity still had a role to in the trial, being brought up frequently. And how Travis, and Jody, for that matter, were not living the law.

At any rate, this latest Mormon Moment is still in the moment………

Firstly, as a result of this recent radio broadcast and this YouTube of a radio broadcast made in 2011, and given the almost universal description of polygamy not having been a part of Pakistani culture, I feel I need to revise my description of the polygamous families I observed walking in the park. Whilst the city I grew up did and does have a large Pakistani Muslim population, those families probably were not Pakistani, but from some other Muslim nation. That said it would seem that polygamy is increasingly becoming the choice of third generation Pakistani Muslims in Britain.

In the BBC radio broadcast “Jemima Khan and the Part-time Wife” Jemima Khan interviewed: matchmaking organiser Mizan Raja; Charlotte Proudman – barrister specialising in Islamic marriage, divorce and dowry; Kola Hassan – Islamic law consultant and media representative for the Sharia Council, London; Kalsoom Bashir – project manager for the Islamic women’s organisation Inspire; Senior Imam and Sharia Council judge Mufti Barkatulla; Muslim activist and former director of the Muslim Institute Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui; and Baroness Caroline Cox – member of the House of Lords, and sponsor for the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill in parliament. Also interviewed were a number of individuals describing personal experiences whose identity had been protected. A flavour of the programme can be also gained by reading this article published in the New Statesman.

British law recognises polygamous wives, when and only when the marriages have taken place both according to the laws of countries in which they happened, and before any of the participants first arrived in this country. Bigamy is a crime in Britain.

Charlotte Proudman: A man and or a woman commit bigamy when they take more than one spouse, aware that they are already married. Polygamy in the Muslim faith does not constitute bigamy because the polygamous marriages of the second and third marriage has involved a nikar contract. They haven’t married under UK law. They’ve simply entered into a religious marriage and it allows them to circumvent the UK laws, thereby ensuring that they’re not committing bigamy because the marriage is not recognised, it’s not registered.

So basically, in the eyes of British law, a man and woman living together with a nikar contract, but not a legally registered marriage are in the same position as any other cohabiting couple, of which there are no small number. If a man is apparently cohabiting with different women in different homes, well that isn’t illegal either.

In recent years the number and type of institution granted the right to record legal marriages has been widened, and mosques have been included in this broadening. Very few mosques have registered to do this however.

Kola Hassan: The take up of mosques to be registered to do civil marriages has been very slow. And the other issue has been, I was speaking to one Imam and he said that his mosque is registered, and when a couple come and say ‘We wish to get married here, we wish to have a nikar’, the Imam will say to them ‘You know that this is registered. Therefore you will have a civil certificate as well.’ And the couple turn round and say ‘No thank you. We don’t want the civil certificate. We don’t want to be married in front of the state. We just want the nikar.’ Why? Why are some people actually refusing to have a civil contract of marriage? It could be that there is polygamy, or the potential for polygamy in the future.

Mufti Barkatulla and Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui are disturbed by this trend. In 2008 they developed a Muslim marriage contract, now available on the internet, but which has, disappointingly, received limited uptake by mosques and Imams around the country. The website also gives a good deal of information about the protections of civil registration of a marriage, and the lack of protection for cohabitation.

Dr Siddiqui: We insist that the civil ceremony takes place first, because the civil ceremony of course is recognised as a valid marriage. The nikar is not. So you secure your rights, protect your rights first.

Mufti Barkatulla: It leads to abuse really. Just nikar puts the woman at vulnerable position and it gives men really a lot of undue power and room for abuse.

Jemima Khan: Can you tell me how the marriage contract deals with the issue of polygamy?

Mufti Barkatulla: Based on practical experience and in cases we have dealt with in today’s world, in today’s industrial society, it is impossible to observe the conditions laid down by the scriptures, because in UK legally it is not allowed, so by living in UK we are consenting to abide by UK law, so it is ruled out anyway.

So, what are those scriptural conditions? All those interviewed appeared to be in agreement that according to scripture, if a man is to have more than one wife he must be able to treat all them equally, and that this applies right down to what he gives them, and how much time he spends with each of them. There seems to be the same justification for the introduction of the practice that I have heard given for polygamy early in LDS history, namely for the protection of widows and orphans. I suppose equal treatment could be used as a reason for not choosing to register any marriage legally, but failure to register does not protect said widows and orphans, so for me it is easy to see why Mufti Barkatulla feels as he does.

There are several reasons why polygamy is happening. On the one hand it is coming to be seen as an identity marker by young British Muslims. But another factor would appear to be arranged marriages, either as a work-around for the men, or failure of an arranged marriage for the women.

[Individual quotes, not in conversation]

Kalsoom Bashir: … the tendency I have come across is young men that have been British-born Muslims seeing it as a right that they have, and not necessarily taking the permission of the first wife, and using it as a way of expressing their Islamic identity and sewing their seeds in a legitimate way with an endorsement of faith upon it, to give it legitimacy. Other cases I have where men have had marriages to women abroad at their family’s request. So those women come across, and they don’t speak English. They’re quite isolated. They’re there to look after the in-laws and produce children, so they have nothing in common with their husbands. And then the men are having relationships with women that they’ve known previously, and they have a lot more in common with them, so they’re having parallel lives.

[N.B. Wives coming from abroad will need to have a legal marriage to qualify for a visa.]

Mizan Raja: Some of the women who are actually in their late 30s or 40s with two children or more; it’s very unlikely, from my experience, and they themselves know that, that they’re going to find a man who’s going to be single, or who’s going to be divorced, who’s going to take them on. They would rather consider being in a part-time role. If the man is very successful, if he’s very able, why not?

Farzana: I come from a Pakistani background. I come from an arranged marriage. I didn’t want an arranged marriage, however I kind of went along with it. I consented to it, and then I realised I didn’t have anything in common with this person, so therefore the marriage was redundant. There is a stigma being divorced. The families know each-other. And so-and-so talks. Therefore, there’s always this expectation that maybe you messed up, maybe there was something wrong, or she didn’t have children…

Aisha: In asian society especially, a lot of people don’t want their sons to marry a single mother, and you can’t blame them in a way. … As single mum’s we don’t have pick of the bunch. … Look at it from a woman’s perspective. It’s there for us so we can still have the benefits of marriage, so we don’t have to be left on the shelf, so our children can still have role models, you know – father figures. And so we can still have that emotional stability, financial stability, and you know, security.

Kola Hassan: Where women who are divorced, who are widowed, they may have children, they may not have children, but they want to be with a partner. They want to be in a marriage relationship. In Islam there are very strict rules about relationships.

Unfortunately, those benefits don’t always work out.

Sara: There are these cases of second wives, where it is the state paying for the second wife. So the second wife is on benefits. The man is not paying, which is wrong. It is ethically wrong. In Islam if a man takes a second wife he has to be able to afford it. Not rely on the state. And I’ve seen one or two women who are really in poverty. They’re living in poverty, and I just look at them and I think how can your husband come round and see you living like this, and live with himself. And because again it’s hidden, it means that she can’t really get any justice.

A year ago the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill had it’s first reading, and last October, it’s second reading in the House of Lords. The Bill was introduced by Baroness Caroline Cox and aims to address “the suffering of women oppressed by religiously sanctioned gender discrimination in this country; and a rapidly developing alternative quasi-legal system which undermines the fundamental principle of one law for all.” Whilst the Bill does not specifically single out any particular religion, it was in part prompted by the practise of polygamy amongst Muslims in this country.

Baroness Cox: People come to this country because of our legal system, because of our democracy, because of our commitment to promoting equal rights for all citizens. One Muslim lady actually said to us ‘I feel betrayed by Britain. I came to this country to get away from this and the situation is worse here than in my country of origin’. You’ve got to put law first. You’ve got to put human rights first. And cultures which contravene that law and contravene human rights and condone women’s suffering, well that’s not a culture that must take precedence.

Jemima Khan: Kalsoom Bashir and her organisation Inspire was one of those who supported the introduction of Baroness Cox’s bill in parliament, but Kola Hassan … believes that restricting the ability to practice polygamy is not the answer to women’s suffering.

Kola Hassan: Polygamy can work, is working perfectly fine in Britain in families that are happy to be part of that system. … The only problem is with the legal side because Britain is refusing to accept that polygamy takes place. … When women are let down because they didn’t have a civil marriage contract it’s not the problem of the polygamous marriage, it’s the problem of the English legal system that refuses to accept it as an entity. It needs to offer it some kind of recognition.

Mufti Barkatulla and Dr Siddiqui look like heroes to me, and it is a pity they can’t get more support from Imams and mosques a round the country. I’m not at all sure that I follow the reasoning of either Kola Hassan or Baroness Cox. The legal position is that these individuals are essentially cohabiting. Cohabitation does not confer the same rights as legal marriage. Just as many Muslim’s participating in a nikar-only marriage are apparently unaware of their lack of legal protections, a great many non-Muslim cohabitees are similarly surprised when something happens, to find they lack protection. There is no such thing as a common-law marriage, though it is often argued in the media there should be. These are all adults making their choices, and taking the consequences.

• Should a country change it’s laws to accommodate a religious practice (in this case polygamy)?
• What legal responsibility should religious leaders accept in ensuring that their adherents understand the legal consequences of their actions?
• When citizens don’t want to avail themselves of the mechanisms (in this case marriage) that would afford them legal protection, should laws be changed to protect them anyway?

When my child brings home a poor grade, I:

1. Run directly to the phone to call the teacher. When she doesn’t answer, I call the principal.
2. Talk with my child about the grade and contact the teacher to discuss ways we can help my child improve her academic performance.
3. Yell and scream at my child and tell her that if she doesn’t bring up her grade, she’ll be grounded.

Uhm, how about 4?  I am not even aware my kid has a poor grade.  We operate under a strict “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy! Apparently the quizmasters never thought of that one.

Helicopter parent is a colloquial term for a parent who pays extremely close attention to a child’s or children’s experiences and problems, particularly at educational institutions.  Helicopter parents are so named because, like helicopters, they hover overhead.

A recent Time article talks about the side effects of helicopter parenting:  kids who are incompetent and depressed.  We have to allow the little chicklings to peck their own way out of the egg or they do not have the strength to survive, as this wise and adamant person said online:

Do NOT help your chicken out of its shell!!! It needs to do it by itself! If you help a chicken out of its shell then it could get sick or even die. The chicken knows what to do. Some people think that its ok but don’t listen to them!

So it is with children.  Although they may not become sick and die, they will not develop into adults (or chickens) if they are not allowed/forced to learn how to fend for themselves.  This parenting style is also creating a lot of “rubber band” kids:  kids who return home to live after college rather than finding their way in the world.  Look, if my parents hadn’t sped off so quickly after dropping me at the Y, I might have come home more often too.  This rubber band phenomenon is worse thanks to the high unemployment rate in the wake of the global economic crisis and the tendency of Mormons to marry in infancy college.

I have observed a lot of overprotective parenting behaviors in the church and among the rising generation of parents in general.  Especially when the parents are nutjobs view the world as a dangerous place full of moral perils, they may be overprotective nutjobs.

Is this why the incidence of depression is so high in Utah?  Do parents teach their children that they need to be taken care of and are not capable of thinking for themselves?  The difference between a behavior being helicopter parenting and normal good parenting all depends on context and the age of the child (trust should increase with age).  What is appropriate when a child is in kindergarten becomes overparenting by middle school.

Helicopter parents want what is best for their children:  academic success, achievement, for their kids to be treated fairly, for their child’s specialness to be recognized and acknowledged, for them to feel safe and protected.  Parents start with good intentions and end with bad behaviors.  Part of growing up includes learning that life isn’t always fair, that kids need to take feedback and make improvements to do well, that they have to advocate for themselves at times, and that they won’t always have a safety net.

Do kids leave their restrictive home environment and go straight into an episode of Girls Gone Wild?  Or simply wet themselves when they have to learn to feed themselves or fight their own battles?

The church itself sometimes behaves like a helicopter parent:

• Strictly correlated materials and a prohibition from using outside sources in teaching.
• Adults as well as youth being encouraged to follow the standards set out for the youth.
• Members are sometimes encouraged to police each other.  Certainly those attending BYU are encouraged to do so, as the honor code stipulates turning in other students for violations.
• Women can’t meet without a man present.  Men can’t teach children without another adult present.
• Being told (erroneously but still frequently) that “once the brethren speak the thinking is done.”
• Members meeting with leaders regularly to account for their tithing payments and temple worthiness.
• Some of the instructions in the White Bible on the mission felt pretty helicopter-ish.  So did many all of the BYU rules.
• The Word of Wisdom could be seen as overly restrictive to prevent extreme abuses that are rare.

Does this result in our being perpetually dependent rather than developing our own spiritual power and personal revelation?  Does it result in morally reckless behaviors for those who leave the church (like those Amish kids on Rumspringa)?

• Are you a helicopter parent?  Why or why not?
• What helicopter parent behaviors do you see at church or in the community?
• Do you see the church “overparenting” its members?  Or do you see us given more than average trust and freedom (e.g. lay clergy, missions, members do the sermons)?

Discuss.

*This post was originally posted at BCC, sans poll.

By 1874, Washington had launched still another assault on the Mormons who had sought sanctuary in Utah.  And the prophet who had brought them there would be forced to choose between saving his Church, or sacrificing his spiritual son.

Following several discussions about the Indians and federal officials, Burns turns to discuss Mormons a couple of decades after the massacre happened.  The quotes below come from about the 50 minute mark of Part 6.

“I feel like a father with a great family of children around me in a winter storm, and I am looking with calmness, confidence, and patience for the clouds to break and the sun to shine, so that I can run out and say ‘Children come home.’  I am ready to kill the fatted calf and make a joyful feast to all who will come and partake.”  (Brigham Young)

For 30 hard years, Brigham Young had attended to every detail of life in northern Utah where under his leadership, 150,000 Latter-day Saints had settled in his desert sanctuary.  Young had tried to fashion a distinct society based on communal economics, polygamy, and one-party politics all run by the church.  But now he felt besieged.  Congress was once again trying to assert control over Utah. A new law gave federal courts, not Mormons, jurisdiction over criminal cases.

Stuart Udall, former Secretary of the Interior, “The federal officials in Utah really wanted to nail Brigham Young. They were trying to reduce his power over the people.”

Narrator, “One of the first actions of federal prosecutors was to arrest Young’s devoted follower, John D. Lee, and put him on trial for murder.  Twenty years earlier, a group of unsuspecting emigrants travelling from Missouri and Arkansas had been attacked by a combined force of Paiute Indians and Mormon settlers at a place called Mountain Meadows.

John D. Lee had opposed the attack at first, but in the end he went along with it and more than a hundred men, women, and children had been slaughtered without mercy.  It had been the darkest event in Mormon history.”

Udall, “John D. Lee was one of my great grandfathers, and he, until recent times was considered the leader who carried out the Mountain Meadows massacre.  Actually he was about third in line in the chain of command of a militia that carried this out. He later then was sent to southern Utah in kind of out of the immediate arm of Brigham Young, but there was a father-son type relationship between those two men.”

Narrator, “For years Young tried to protect his protege from capture and prosecution for his role in the massacre sending him to exile in the Arizona wilderness near the Grand Canyon.  It was a rough, solitary existence.  Lee named his new home Lonely Dell.  Prosecutors offered him money and leniency if he would implicate others in the killings. ”

“It is told around for a fact that I could tell great confessions and bring in Brigham Young and the heads of the church.  But I will not be the means of bringing troubles on my people.  For this people is a misrepresented and cried down community.  Yes the people scattered and peeled.  And if at last they did rise up and shed the blood of their enemies, I won’t consent to give them up.” (John D. Lee)

When Lee’s trial began, orders went out that no Mormon should testify.  The four gentiles on the jury found Lee guilty, but all eight Mormons held out for acquittal.  Across the nation, the case became a symbol for everything Americans despised about the Mormonism. Pressures mounted for the government to strip Brigham Young and the church of authority in Utah.  A second trial was scheduled.

Udall, “I think a decision was made, well if we sacrifice Lee, maybe the pressures will go away, because at the second trial, the word was sent down to the Mormons that this had to be completed, and they should vote for conviction.  He was singled out as the perpetrator, and Mormons even put it in their Sunday School lessons, which bothered my family for a long time, and he was in effect scape-goat.”

Narrator, “This time, all the members of the jury were Mormons.  All voted to convict.  No one else who took part in the massacre was ever brought to trial. Under Utah law, Lee was allowed to choose whether he was to be shot, hanged, or beheaded.  He chose to face a firing squad. On March 23, 1877, John D. Lee was escorted to the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, seated on a coffin and photographed.  He made arrangements for each of the two wives who remained true to him to get a copy of the picture.  Then he spoke to the little crowd who had come to see him die.

I have but little to say this morning.  Of course I feel that I am upon the brink of eternity.  I feel as calm as a summer morn.  I am ready to meet my Redeemer.  I do not believe everything that is now being taught and practiced by Brigham Young.  I do not care who hears it. I studied to make this man’s will my pleasure for 30 years.  See now what I have come to this day.  I have been sacrificed in a cowardly, dastardly manner.  What confidence can I have in such a man. I have none, and I don’t think my Father in Heaven has any.

John D. Lee lying in his coffin.

Then Lee shook hands with his executioners, handed his hat and overcoat to a friend.  His last words were to the firing squad.  ’Center my heart boys’, he said.  ’Don’t mangle my body.’

Five months later, Brigham Young was seized by terrible stomach pains. For days surrounded by his huge family, the patriarch floated in and out of consciousness.  On August 29, he called out the name of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith, then Brigham Young, the man who had led his people to the West and shielded them from their enemies for three decades, died.

Even in death, he remained in charge.  Following precise instructions left in his will, his remains were placed in a stone vault overlooking the magnificent city he had built in the desert.  Now his followers would have to face the world without him.

“I can’t undertake to explain Brigham Young to your Atlantic citizens or expect for you to put him at his value.  Your great men eastward are to me like your ivory and pearl handed table knives:  more shiny than the inside of my watch case, but with only edge enough to slice bread and cheese and all alike by the dozen one with another.  Brigham is the article that sells out west with us.  Between a Roman cutlass and a beef butcher knife, the thing to cut up a deer, or cut down an enemy every bit as well.  You that judge men by the handle in the sheath, how can I make you know a good blade?”  (Jedidiah M. Grant)

What are your thoughts?