Mormonism: A Sausage Makers Religion

A friend of mine, Christian Harrison--whom some bloggers may know as "Silus Grok"--first introduced me to the metaphor of the sausage maker in relation to Mormonism. Chew on this:

Do we prescribe bed rest and further enfeeble the weak minded? Or do we prescribe exercise and enjoin our siblings in faith to embrace a dynamic faith? Mormonism isn't an easy faith. It's the sausage maker's religion...Mormonism requires us to be active in making our own faith: an open canon, personal revelation, messy recent history, hard truths, prolific talks from leaders only a small number of which qualify as prophetic…you name it. We've signed up for a faith that is CONSTANTLY — RELIGIOUSLY, even — reinventing itself. And, like sausage making, it's not always a pretty picture. You have to get your hands dirty. And sometimes someone looses a finger. Mormonism, then, is a sausage makers' faith.

I was reminded of those astute words last week while reading Bryndis Robert's guest post at Flunking Sainthood. She's an attorney, an adult convert to the LDS Church from the Black Baptist faith, and she currently serves as a Relief Society President in Atlanta, Georgia. I find her voice perceptive and insightful. Below I only quote a portion of her words, but I endorse the entire post: 

I love sausage. However, I don’t like the sausage-making process. Through hands-on experience, I know that it’s ugly and messy. My family had a small farm where we raised chickens and hogs. Each fall, our rural community would get together for hog-killing day. Each person had a job. My job was to make the sausage. First, I had to choose which parts of the hog to use. Then, I had to wash the meat several times, chop it into chunks, and grind it (making sure not to lose any fingers in the process). Next, I had to mix and season the meat. I then had to stuff it into casings and form links or shape it into patties. So, what did I learn from that experience?

• Making sausage requires time and manual dexterity. 

• Not paying attention could cause me to injure myself. 

• I had lots of choices of ingredients when making sausage. 

• My choices determined the quality and taste of the sausage I made. 

The intersection of politics, social justice, and religion reminds me of making sausage. It’s an ugly and scary place to be. There’s the possibility of injury to the heart, mind, and soul. We have choices to make.  

As a member of the LDS Church, it has been difficult to watch the Church I love deal with this intersection—particularly on the issue of marriage equality and other rights for the LGBTQIA community. When the missionaries were teaching me, I was honest about my political and social views and the fact that I fall squarely in the Liberal or Progressive box. I was concerned about conflict between my political and social views and those of the Church. My missionaries pointed to the 12th Article of Faith and assured me that:

• members of the Church covered the entire political spectrum; 

• the Church encouraged members, as individuals, to be involved in the political process; and 

• the Church, as an organization, did not interfere in the political process.

Bryndis goes on to say:

I don’t know all of the answers, but there are a few things I do know:

• Navigating the intersection of politics, social justice, and religion requires a balance of courage, conviction, compassion, and compromise. 

• I cannot rely on anyone, including any Church leader, to choose my beliefs. I must choose. 

• I have to use my divinely given gifts of reasoning and intelligence to discern the correct course for me. 

• My choices will determine the kind of person that I am.

I share these convictions and I confess that being a Mormon like this can indeed feel like a "meat grinder" at times. It's not always pleasant, but I still love meat. Despite the "eat meat sparingly" rhetoric of the Word of Wisdom, I'm admittedly a Mormon meat lover--both literally and metaphorically.

Sometimes when I start talking about or craving the metaphorical meat people respond as though I should be content with milk. I understand milk for an infant, but children of God are meant to grow up into adults of God. Therefore, I find it a little insulting (and thus resent) when I'm treated like an infant and also by how often it feels like I'm being force-fed milk after having become an adult.

I hope to always retain the best of the Christ-endorsed child-like qualities, but this doesn't mean I continue to have a child-like relationship with the Church. Like Paul, I've grown up and "put away childish things" (1 Corinthians 13:11.) I've matured in my faith and as I've done so I've also come to have a more mature understanding of scripture. As Terryl Givens put it, "Scripture is a human manifestation of an impulse toward and from the divine. One can't expect textual flawlessness."

It can be a bit frightening to realize that all of God's most objective truths are always evaluated subjectively. It's initially jarring to realize that there is no such thing as unmediated revelation--that it always comes through a human filter. So while I continue to choose faith and to trust God, I no longer equate "LDS priesthood authorities" with God. I trust mortal leaders to do their best to seek inspiration, but I'm not trusting them to give us unfiltered or unmediated revelation. Everything that comes to us comes through our human experience, our human language, and human culture. And we "see through a glass darkly".

Once upon a time I took comfort in believing there was an infallible standard I could rely on. Similar to how Armand Mauss shifted his faith paradigms as he came to understand the social construct of reality, my paradigm now places emphasis on choice--choosing to believe--relying on my own conscience as the final authority for how to live my life. Terryl Givens has explained it this way:

“We want a standard that is infallible because it relieves us of the burden of continually exerting ourselves to use discernment. The way that Dostoyevsky put it so beautifully is that 'We want some person to be a keeper of our conscience'. The hard lesson is that there is never a moment when you can delegate your own volition to another individual.”

Unfortunately I continue to meet many self-proclaimed "orthodox" Saints who take issue with this approach because in their paradigm it lowers the importance of apostles and prophets. By pointing out the need to use individual discernment and rely on our own conscience (our individual best effort to understand the will of God) some have even implied that I'm "attacking" the apostles and prophets, regardless of whether or not they're even "acting as such."

When I refuse to put church leaders up on a pedestal, no one needs to pin evil motives on me or assume I think the apostles are "evil" or "sinister"(words I've seen used.) That would just be crazy talk. I've never in my life even implied such a thing as this. My theory is that this crazy talk is born out of a misunderstanding of what it really means to "sustain" our leaders--but thankfully Christian Harrison has more insight to share on that important topic as well.  In reality the only really crazy thing I can see is how many Mormons want to be "relieved of the burden of individual discernment."

I can understand why people could be initially uncomfortable with individual discernment--the process can involve doubt and uncertainty, and doubt and uncertainty make a lot of people nervous. There are some folks who get nervous when they realize they have to think for themselves and follow their conscience rather than just "follow the leader." I think these folks have yet to learn the "the hard lesson", as Terryl Givens said, that there is never a moment when you can delegate your own volition to another individual leader. This is why Bryndis' words resonate as though they were my personal manifesto:

• I cannot rely on anyone, including any Church leader, to choose my beliefs. I must choose. 

• I have to use my divinely given gifts of reasoning and intelligence to discern the correct course for me. 

• My choices will determine the kind of person that I am.

The sausage making process can make people uncomfortable. It can be messy. But we must embrace the messiness if we're to be faithful to reality. We belong to a sausage makers religion. Can we please stop pretending that things are always clean and tidy as though we're still infants who can't handle the meat? Let's just get comfortable with the idea that we're not always going to be comfortable in a world of ambiguity and uncertainty and get on with the good news of embracing faith and grace.

What "Sustaining" Our Leaders *Really* Means

One of the best statements about sustaining our leaders was written during this past tumultuous Mormon summer by my friend, Christian Harrison. The following is an excerpt from his guest post: "A Prayer from the Sidelines":

In a church that readily — or, perhaps, merely repeatedly — reminds us of the fallibility of our leaders, yet urges us to sustain them, we can’t help but ask ourselves how we sustain those who are mistaken (especially in light of D&C 121:39). Sometimes the mistakes are small or inadvertent. Sometimes they’re howlers. Sometimes they resolve themselves. And sometimes they persist for generations. 

I think the problem is born of two errors: a mischaracterization of what it means to sustain our leaders… and a misunderstanding of what our responsibility is to those who might disagree with us. 

The principle of sustaining our leaders is often coupled with the principle of obedience. It’s natural for leadership to feel sustained when they observe obedience… but this is an error of perspective. When I raise my hand to the square to sustain someone in their position — regardless of whether it be the President of the Church or the person who prints the ward bulletin — I’m not promising to obey them. I’m promising to sustain them. 

The term “sustain” is rich with meaning. Food sustains us. Love sustains us. Unblinking obedience does not sustain us. My sustaining vote is evidenced and manifest when I pray for their success — when I’m rooting for them and helping them to magnify their calling. And, like food and love, the act of sustaining is reciprocative. My sustaining vote is accepted when those I sustain embrace and facilitate me in my work as the sustainer.

And when we disagree — and we will, it’s inevitable — we’re not called upon to simply succumb to the demands of begrudging obedience, which is a destructive act; we’re called, instead, to the godly and creative act of loving someone despite their failings. This is at the heart of the weighty calling of sibling-ship. 

This is easier when the person we’re sustaining lives in our ward and when the lines of communication are vivid and vibrant — full of life and light. It’s much harder when the lines of communication have crumpled under the crushing weight of a growing and global membership. And since the act of sustaining is reciprocative, the difficulties that arise from broken or missing lines of communication don’t fall solely on the shoulders of those who have grievances. They must be shared by all parties, jointly and severally. Calling on those who feel wronged to bear their grief in silence is to reject their sustaining vote. And who, then, carries the greater sin? Instead, it behooves our distant leaders to open lines of communication and to clear the way for dialogue. Only then can the process work as it should — feeding the Body of Christ. 

Sadly, the grieved don’t always want to be comforted. Sometimes, they want to simply walk away, to defect — which is the true meaning of apostasy. What, then, is our responsibility to the defector? It’s clear, really. Among the lost sheep there are those who were left behind accidentally… and there are those who simply walked off. But no distinction is made in the scriptures. The good shepherd goes after all of them. At no point does the shepherd cut them off or throw them to the wolves.