The Caretaker Behind the Curtain

Stephen Fleming

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I often see exMos refer to the line from the Wizard of Oz, “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” in reference to a church culture that doesn’t want the membership to focus on seemingly problematic aspects of the church’s claims. Though I’m not in the same place as exMos, I do actually like the metaphor in terms of my proposed caretaker model.

And the metaphor is this. As I understand it, the Wizard really was a very capable administrator but figured out ways for his public persona to be much more grand with displays of great beings to deliver his messages. To me, I think the evidence does point to the caretaker model which is somewhat different than our more standard leadership theology. I think, as previous posts and discussions indicated, that many of our leaders felt that the membership expected them to be receiving a lot more revelation than they actually did. See Davek’s posts about quotes from Joseph F. Smith on this post.

I do think that expectation always persisted and that we find it central to our claims. I do wonder if that leads to problematic expectations of our leaders’ decisions.

I do think our church’s track record, though quite good, has a few problems. The race ban is a big one. Lots have been concerned about the SEC fine. I think it’s problematic to hold to what we often see demanded by our leadership theology that all decisions were the right ones. I don’t think that the ban or the actions that led to the fine were the perfect, divine decision.

I think those decisions fit better within the caretaker model of good people, trying to do their best, influenced by an imperfect society and the leaders’ own imperfection. As church (or other organization) scandals go, I see the SEC fine a fairly minor, but at the same time, I don’t think it makes sense to argue that the leaders didn’t make any mistakes (apparently not possible in our common interpretation of our leadership theology).

Racist attitudes that church leaders had played an important role keeping the ban in place were also quite common in the larger society. We can forgive our leaders, just as we all need forgiveness, but I don’t think we need to insist that the origin of the ban and how long it stayed in place weren’t a product of mistaken cultural attitudes.

Again, I view the caretaker model as more correct, while also believing in inspiration and guiding providence. But rather than viewing all the changes that came in President Nelson’s presidency as THE evidence of continuing revelation (I think revelation works in more diffuse ways), I see them more as capable administrators working to tinker with church policies in the face of challenges. Having been bishop when a lot were implemented, I was of the opinion that many didn’t work very well, (see comments) but I totally got the idea that our leaders wanted to try to make improvements. It’s what good administrators do. And I’ve kept saying Mormon.

In coming back to the-man-behind-the-curtain metaphor, I think we’re in a state where the “curtain” is drifting more and more “open.” Our history and other observations point to our leadership being short of the essential perfection that our leadership theology strongly suggests, and that indicates to people holes in that leadership theology.

Since we’ve gotten to the point where we claim that leadership theology as central to our church’s validity, I think many of us have a larger tendency to really want to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” But to shift the metaphor a little, our “man behind the curtain” is a pretty wonderful system of producing wise and competent leaders with a very good track record.

To me, President Oaks may be the best qualified leader not only we, but just about any religious organization has ever had. Extremely smart, extremely experienced, very dedicated, and very good. I’ve long disagreed with some things he’s said, but I don’t see that as undermining just how well prepared he is. I do think he faces a tremendous amount of unenviable challenges (including taking over a larger and challenging organization at age 93) but no one could be more qualified.

Again, I see that we’re in a position where the “curtain” is getting more “open” and more and more of us are and will continue to see a “man behind the curtain.” But as I do see us as having a wonderful system that will be led by a tremendously qualified leader, I argue that the man behind the curtain is something worth greatly celebrating.

Comments

4 responses to “The Caretaker Behind the Curtain”

  1. REC911

    As I was pondering this issue the last couple weeks I feel I was enlightened a bit as to why we think as humans that prophets are always being prophets. When we pray to know something is true in the church, such as we are told to pray about the BOM’s truthfulness, and we get an affirmative answer, we as humans tend to believe that is validation that the BOM in its entirety is correct in every word and tend to use it as such. When a Christian does the same thing about the Bible, they tend to also believe the Bible is the infallible word of God and complete word of God and every word written is literally the word of God. The thought that Paul or Mark or Luke could ever have written something that was their opinion or just got something wrong is just not an option. The Bible is always right!

    If God tells me that Pres Nelson is a “prophet” then that defaults to me that everything he does or says is from God.

    I believe we are told (through a spiritual event) the scriptures are true, the church is true, the prophet is the prophet, from God/Spirit but its our mistake to take that as literally at all times and in everything. The bible can be “mostly” true and still be a good thing. Prophets can get it right “most of the time” and still be prophets.

    If we look at our church and leaders through this lens, we can maybe be ok with all the oddities of our history that just seem off or flat out wrong. Not everything JS translated was accurate. Not everything a “prophet” said or did is form God. Not everything we thought was doctrine was doctrine. Not every president we have had gets prophecy etc etc.

    The caretaker model fits this IMO.

  2. Davek

    “When an honest man learns he is mistaken, he will either cease being mistaken or he will cease being honest.” While Oaks has excellent credentials on paper, I can’t get past his repeated tendencies to dishonestly represent history.

    One example that immediately comes to mind is his handling of the Mark Hofmann scandal. He helped orchestrate the purchase of the Salamander Letter forgery to bury it. After its existence was leaked, he gaslit us by explaining that a salamander could have been a spiritual being and not the small amphibian that the context of the document demands.

    More recently, he told a group of college students that electroshock therapy against gay men at BYU had ceased before he became president there. We know that isn’t the case because his signature is on a thesis or dissertation that described this very thing during his tenure.

    It’s hard for me to support a leader who does not prioritize honesty and transparency. I long for the day when a church president will fling open the curtain himself (or herself?) and tell us plainly that revelations are rare and they’re just doing the best they can in the meantime.

  3. Stephen Fleming

    You bring up lots of good points, REC, and I think at the heart of the issue is that big question of Truth. Our world is so complex with so many competing views that having a clear and simple source of All Truth, whether the Bible or the president of the church, can be quite appealing. I agree with you that Truth is more complicated than that but not binary: the bible and our leaders have a lot of truth, but I don’t see either as the pure absolute source.

    And I do think that dynamic has played a big role in the creation of our leadership theology. The idea of the president as the absolute source of Truth is very appealing and that desire ends up being self confirming between the leaders and members.

    Davek, I understand there can be a lot of frustration over church leadership, but I think what I said to REC is largely at the heart of not yanking open the curtain. I think our leadership theology is pretty engrained so that I’m sure our leaders do believe it to a large extent. It sure struck me that President Nelson did.

    I really found President Oaks’s recent talk at President Nelson’s funeral to be pretty interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra8bzOcU2h0

    At the beginning, President Oaks talked about President Nelson’s decision-making style of being very fast and self-assured like a surgeon needs to be, while the tendency among other church leaders has been to be more deliberative. I wasn’t much a fan of President Nelson’s policies, so I think the deliberative process is the superior one.

    But what I thought was interesting is that President Oaks framed the issue of human bureaucrats making decisions, and made no reference to revelation. Now, I’m sure President Oaks does belief in inspiration/revelation, but to me, the talk was a little moment of giving a slight reveal that the decisions tend to be more bureaucratic than revelatory, which I think is accurate.

    In my opinion, I think President Nelson did a lot of inadvertent “curtain opening” because I thing a lot of the policies were problematic. President Oaks pumping the brakes (at least for a time) on temple-building suggests that President Oaks has some concerns there. So already, I kind of get the sense of Oaks giving slight reveals of leaders having some disagreements.

    But I also get that many leaders probably feel that the leadership theology is so entrenched that to make a clear statement against it would be a massive jolt to most church members. So I think it will be more along the lines of baby-steps, and in my view, President Oaks has already done of few of those.

  4. Jonathan Green

    I think you’re underestimating church members’ capability for nuanced understanding of leadership. This leadership theology isn’t something like the question of how many sub-levels are in the Telestial Kingdom – it’s something that most adult members have direct personal experience with at one time or another. A lot of the decisions in ward council are the best we can come up with at the time rather than the revealed will of God, and most lessons I’ve taught are not supernaturally dictated word by word. But the exceptions are real.

    The leadership theology is also an important part of the social contract between leaders and church members. Members accept the day-to-day, committee-based decision-making because we are counting on a particular leader (of a ward, a quorum or auxiliary organization, or of the whole Church) to be able and willing to receive honest-to-goodness revelation on critical questions.

    Leaders’ discomfort with this arrangement is also understandable. When a close family member comes to me for a priesthood blessing, they aren’t asking for some comforting words and kindly advice – they’re asking me to serve as a literal conduit for revelation. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in because it’s an awesome responsibility and they should really find someone who’s better at it, but it’s part of the job description and not something I can hand off to anyone else.

    In general I think the amount of agonizing over when the prophet is speaking as a prophet is vastly out of proportion to the kinds of things we’ve actually been asked to do. Maybe we could just be more chill about studying the scriptures at home, being authentic in visiting other ward members, and getting vaccinated?

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