Everything Else Wrong with Mormon Writing

You’re not too punk for Provo.

An annoying tic found with some frequency in LDS writing is the enthusiastic confession that some idea or practice is simply too radical for the folks at BYU. As in: “I enjoy drinking Cherry Coke and I quote from the NRSV when I’m called on in Sunday School. That would never fly in Provo!” It’s usually a silly thing to say. BYU faculty members have published their own modern Bible translations. The New English Translation was on the required reading list for a literature course I took at BYU some 35 years go. Do you know the strengths and weaknesses of a particular translation and have valid reasons to prefer it over the KJV? Great. That makes you a nerd, not a rebel. You’ll fit right in. I promise you, no one will blink when you quote from the NRSV.

What’s more, the Missionary Training Center is just up the street, and missionary work and academia are two of the primary ways that the Church has interfaced with the modern world throughout its existence. Missionaries have spent some time in almost every corner of the nation and most parts of the world, including the less scenic parts people rarely visit, talking to the kinds of people who are willing to talk to missionaries, who infrequently hail from the professional classes. Coke is merely what you drink after first having talked whoever you’re visiting out of serving you alcohol, then coffee. I’m not shocked that you drink Coke, just that you do it by choice. That stuff tastes nasty.

It’s possible that your idea truly wouldn’t fly in Provo, but not because it’s too punk for the squares on campus. The problem is that you’re proposing something fundamentally incompatible with Church teachings or Christian doctrine or basic gospel principles. We’re not Victorian children who would faint when confronted with the possibility of being alone in a godless, uncaring cosmos; we’ve considered the idea and decided it doesn’t fit the evidence. I mean, please don’t feel unwelcome or rejected when we tell you that God lives, and I’m sure you have lots of fascinating insights and there are ways we can find common ground, but the Church was founded by someone who saw God and we’re intent on sharing that message and at some point you can’t be surprised that we’re not super interested in considering naturalistic, non-theistic alternatives.

But that’s just an annoying tic. A more serious issue, which can show up whenever educated writers address a general LDS readership, is how the authors see themselves as addressing a bunch of dimwitted Pharisees. Implicitly or explicitly, the average Mormon reader is treated as prosperous, comfortable, insular, complacent, superficially informed, in the grips of rote religious formalism and needing to be forcibly awakened from his stupor.

To make your argument, you shouldn’t need to assume the worst of your audience. If your ideas are good, they can stand on their own, without the assumption that you’re writing for an audience of dullards or soulless box-checkers. Notice the difference between “The theory of evolution explains all kinds of interesting things about the human body and the world we live in” (yes, absolutely, keep talking!) and “Biological evolution is too frightening of an idea for the Mormon church to contemplate” (I’m pretty sure you have nothing interesting to say). If your ideas are banal, contrasting them with the shallow religiosity of your imagined audience doesn’t make your ideas profound. Most good writing for LDS audiences avoids constructing an imagined audience of pharisaical dimwits. It takes the approach instead of telling readers: Your religion is interesting and valuable on a human level; here are some additional interesting or valuable things you may not have known about it.

Finally, there’s “raised LDS.”  While an LDS upbringing is a wonderful thing, the rhetorical use of “raised LDS” can be irritating. The problem is that “I was raised LDS” is usually followed by an explanation of culture, history or theology for outsiders that’s based on personal experience or doctrinal understanding fossilized in whatever state it had reached by late adolescence or young adulthood. The raised-LDS explainer often doesn’t recognize the gaps in his or her knowledge and experience, such as a lack of direct experience with missionary service, temple worship, holding callings as an adult, or the typical commonalities and variations across congregations – not that this deficit stops them from explaining what Mormons do and believe. Usually it’s just an annoying tic, but sometimes “raised LDS” can be used to lend plausibility to an insider-outsiderism that’s happy to supply striking quotes in exchange for a platform from which to harangue the faithful without having to share the burden of being identified too closely with the Church or accepting its teachings.

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I was going to split this up into a couple of posts and address each one in depth, but I’m mostly talking about annoying tics here and the material wasn’t that good and I’m already tired of it. Some of these point to larger issues, but I’d rather move on.