{"id":35490,"date":"2016-06-13T19:37:50","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T00:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=35490"},"modified":"2016-06-15T09:32:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-15T14:32:17","slug":"wherefore-should-not-the-heavens-weep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2016\/06\/wherefore-should-not-the-heavens-weep\/","title":{"rendered":"Wherefore Should Not the Heavens Weep?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo of the statue “Jesus Wept” at the Oklahoma City Memorial by Crimsonedge34.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jacob Baker began a long, public Facebook post<\/a> this way:<\/p>\n

I’m willing to bet that there are many people out there right now feeling conflicted about the mass murder that happened yesterday. I’m not talking about the outspoken blatant homophobes and bigots, but essentially good people who find themselves somewhat confused by this tragic event.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He went on to allege that such people have less empathy for the victims of the horrific mass shooting in Orlando because of a \u201cfeeling of disapproval or discomfort\u201d that is \u201ccultivated within your religion.\u201d Thus, such people feel \u201cboth compassion and disgust.\u201d<\/p>\n

An early commenter replied that this \u201cmirrors some of my own experience\u201d and explained that his views on the LGBT community changed as a result of \u201crealizing that they are very honest, genuine people who want many of the same things I want and who struggle in life just as I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, Lindsay Hansen Park publicly shared her own conversion experience<\/a>, which followed the same basic trajectory. She visited a gay bar \u201cdetermined to witness the seediness, accept it, and love the LGBT community in spite of it\u201d but what she saw were \u201cpeople, regular people\u201d and this was \u201cso normal\u201d that \u201c[she] literally couldn\u2019t process it.\u201d As a result, she felt \u201cdeeply ashamed\u201d and \u201cbetrayed by my culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

These sentiments are examples of a larger narrative which holds at its core the proposition that the only reason someone could espouse traditional sexual morality is out of disgust for people who are different. I don\u2019t question the sincerity or even the accuracy of these individual accounts, but I strongly question whether they can be generalized so easily.<\/p>\n

I will start with my own experience. The first person I recognized as possibly gay was Mark[1], a skinny kid in my middle school. I was pretty severely bullied in my middle school\u2014even the teachers liked to get in on it occasionally\u2014and Mark was the only person there who had it worse than I did. He was tormented most frequently in and around the bathrooms, and homophobic slurs were used almost exclusively (as opposed to just sporadically, as in my case). My memory is not exact, but I recall other boys refusing to use the urinals if he was present.<\/p>\n

I did my best to stand up for Mark. I\u2019m sure my best was not very significant\u2014it\u2019s not like I had a lot of social capital to pull from\u2014but I just tried to go out of my way to smile, to say hi, to never avoid him, and to maybe run minor interference between him and some of his tormenters. I hope it helped.<\/p>\n

At that time, I had only the vaguest notion of what it meant to be gay. I\u2019d never kissed a girl or even held a girl\u2019s hand, so all matters related to human sexuality were highly theoretical and abstract. I had some notion that being gay was a sin of some kind (and I had nothing like the sophistication to distinguish inclination from behavior), but that didn\u2019t seem relevant to what I saw before my eyes: a lonely kid who wasn\u2019t hurting anyone was being harassed. Did anything else really matter? None of the lessons that I\u2019d been taught at home and in Sunday school\u00a0about reaching out to those in need had come with exception clauses.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known lots of people from the LGBTQ community since then: family, friends of family, friends of my own. I\u2019ve even had people confide in me about their own journeys with sexuality and\u2014once or twice\u2014seek out my advice. At no point did my religious beliefs about sexual morality change. And at no point was there any conflict between those beliefs and my desire to love and be kind to others. At no point did feelings of disgust arise to create internal conflict or turmoil. Why should they?<\/p>\n

One of the most important scriptures we have as Mormons is the seventh chapter of Moses in which Enoch beholds God weep. Enoch asks, \u201chow is it thou canst weep?\u201d[2] God\u2019s reply is long, starting in verse 32 and ending in verse 37. It is not short of harsh language, discussing the sins of those who would perish (\u201cthey are without affection, and they hate their own blood\u201d) but concluding, \u201cwherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?\u201d[3]<\/p>\n

The Doctrine and Covenants states plainly that \u201cthe worth of souls is great in the sight of God,\u201d[4] and that value is independent of righteousness or sin. And that\u2019s a good thing, because we are all sinners. There is no dividing line between technical sinners (good, church-going folks who make inconsequential mistakes now and then) and real sinners. There is just one group, and we\u2019re all in it together, and there\u2019s no justification for trying to figure out a pecking order.<\/p>\n

We should mourn for the innocent victims of the horrific shooting in Orlando every bit as much as the innocent victims of any other mass shooting: the prayer group gunned down in Charleston, the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary or\u2014God forbid\u2014our own Mormon brothers and sisters if a mass shooting ever takes place at one of our ward buildings or temples. When their children suffer, Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother and the whole heavens weep. They don\u2019t see a difference between one group and another. Who are we to claim sight where God is blind?<\/p>\n

I do not question the personal experiences of Baker or Park or anyone else. They were taught what they were taught, learned what they learned, and experienced what they experienced. But to turn those personal histories into general indictments is to turn valid personal experience into invalid strawmen.<\/p>\n

We live in a world where 15% of Americans believe \u201cmedia or the government adds secret mind-controlling technology to broadcast signals\u201d, 5% believe \u201cthe exhaust seen in the sky behind airplanes is actually chemicals sprayed by the government for sinister reasons\u201d and 4% \u201cbelieve that shape-shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate our societies,\u201d[5]\u00a0so of course I cannot rule out the possibility that somebody, somewhere feels conflicted about these shootings. All I can say is that in the wake of this mass murder, I do not feel conflicted in the slightest, and I do not know a single person who does, and \u00a0there is nothing in the faith I recognize as Mormonism that would justify or \u201ccultivate\u201d such feelings.<\/p>\n

What I was taught, and what I believe, is that we are all children of God, no exceptions. We are all valuable in the eyes of our Heavenly Parents, no exceptions. And we are all sinners and \u201cunprofitable servants\u201d,[6] no exceptions. Our Parents don\u2019t care more about some of us than others, and neither should we. That is the only faith I can recall from my childhood or reconcile with our scriptures and our theology.<\/p>\n

Here is the reason I have chosen to share these thoughts today. In The Bonobo and the Atheist<\/u>, primatologist Frans de Waal describes what he calls \u201cserial dogmatists.\u201d These are people who \u201ccrave dogma, yet have trouble deciding on its contents.\u201d He gives Christopher Hitchens as his example, writing:<\/p>\n

Hitchens was outraged by the dogmatism of religion, yet he himself had moved from Marxism (he was a Trotskyist) to Greek Orthodox Christianity, then to American Neo-Conservatism, followed by an \u201cantitheist\u201d stance that blamed all of the world\u2019s troubles on religion. Hitchens thus swung from the left to the right, from anti-Vietnam War to cheerleader of the Iraq War, and from pro to contra God. He ended up favoring Dick Cheney over Mother Theresa.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am concerned that something similar is taking place here, and that what we may be witnessing is serial tribalism. First, the LGBTQ community is alienated and vilified as \u201cthem.\u201d Then, after a conversion experience much like one of Hitchens\u2019s, it is the conservative religious who are alienated and vilified as \u201cthem\u201d instead. Initially, the sin of homosexuality was the special sin that rationalized treating an entire group of people as other. Now, the sin of intolerance is the new special sin that rationalizes treating a (different) group of people as other. But the fatal flaw is the idea of a \u201cspecial sin.\u201d Outside of the sons of perdition<\/a> (which corresponds neither to sexual transgression nor bigotry), Mormon theology has no such concept.<\/p>\n

Some will see this as an indictment of all liberal Mormons, a personal attack on Baker or Park, and\u2014most of all\u2014just another example of tribalism itself. It is none of those things. I do not presume to characterize\u2014let alone judge\u2014the hearts and minds of anyone, and this includes those I\u2019ve quoted. To impute motive or morality to a person based on a single, heartfelt, well-intentioned Facebook status would be a particularly egregious violation of the Lord\u2019s command to \u201cjudge not.\u201d What I\u2019m interested in is an idea<\/em> that I have seen crop up in many places, and which I believe can (and should) be critiqued without attacking anybody personally.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t really matter what you believe the \u201cspecial sin\u201d to be. No matter where you draw that line, it is quite possible that someday somebody you love will cross it. Someday, someone you love will cease to be one of \u201cus\u201d and will become one of \u201cthem.\u201d You will save pain and heartache if you learn now\u2014before it happens\u2014that that line in the sand is meaningless. That we\u2019re all one.<\/p>\n

Unity that depends on seeing eye-to-eye is a brittle and a hollow unity, but there is something better and deeper and stronger and truer. We do not need to resolve the deep-rooted moral and theological and political differences among us (as Mormons, as Christians, and as Americans) in order to come together in a time of senseless and horrific tragedy. I\u2019m opposed to any idea that\u2014even inadvertantly\u2014implies otherwise. I want everyone who has been saddened by this horrific crime to know that there is no hesitation, no asterisk, no qualification in my response to it, or the response of anyone that I know. Now is a time for compassion and mourning with those who mourn, not for drawing lines of any kind. Difficult conversations can be resumed later, and\u2014if we\u2019ve learned anything\u2014perhaps with less rancor and more generosity than before this tragedy occurred.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0Not his real name, because I don\u2019t still have contact to ask permission to use it.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0Moses 7:29, 31<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[3]\u00a0Moses 7:37<\/a><\/p>\n

[4] D&C 18:10<\/a><\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0Public Policy Polling<\/a><\/p>\n

[6] Mosiah 2:21<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jacob Baker began a long, public Facebook post this way: I’m willing to bet that there are many people out there right now feeling conflicted about the mass murder that happened yesterday. I’m not talking about the outspoken blatant homophobes and bigots, but essentially good people who find themselves somewhat confused by this tragic event. He went on to allege that such people have less empathy for the victims of the horrific mass shooting in Orlando because of a \u201cfeeling of disapproval or discomfort\u201d that is \u201ccultivated within your religion.\u201d Thus, such people feel \u201cboth compassion and disgust.\u201d An early commenter replied that this \u201cmirrors some of my own experience\u201d and explained that his views on the LGBT community changed as a result of \u201crealizing that they are very honest, genuine people who want many of the same things I want and who struggle in life just as I do.\u201d In a similar vein, Lindsay Hansen Park publicly shared her own conversion experience, which followed the same basic trajectory. She visited a gay bar \u201cdetermined to witness the seediness, accept it, and love the LGBT community in spite of it\u201d but what she saw were \u201cpeople, regular people\u201d and this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1156,"featured_media":35491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Jesus_Wept_OKC_Memorial2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35490"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35496,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35490\/revisions\/35496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}