#cjcldsconf

[hi-i-try-to-be-kind]

A letter to tumblrstake

When I first got a tumblr at 13 years old, I had no idea that there would one day be a CJCLDS community on this site. I didn’t find it until years later, if I remember correctly about the time that I made this specific account. Now, in my 20s, I’ve come to love this little community, even when the rest of this site has been so, so harmful to me and my growth as a person. I really love this community—I must stress this. Even though I’ve mostly been a viewer who didn’t interact, this community has meant a lot to me, especially as a late teenager, and has positively impacted the way I interact with people. I truly believe that everyone here is doing their best.

But now I’m leaving tumblr completely. And a huge reason for that is certain patterns that have started to encompass the tumblrstake community. And I believe that if I don’t say anything, no one else will.

Before I go on, I ask that you please try to listen. I know it’s hard—there’s even a Harvard (I think it’s Harvard?) study that shows that in the middle of an argument, someone cannot change their own mind. But while writing this, I practiced something that I hope you will too. I asked myself, ‘Lord, is it I?’ And while I certainly have plenty of responsibility for how I view the comments of others and how they affect me, I also believe that there are some serious problems that almost no one is addressing.

This community, especially at conference time, has become spiritually poisonous. Yes, part of that is how I look at comments, but I’ve come to believe that it’s not just me, but also that the comments are thought of and posted without any consultation with the Spirit. Today, I felt the Spirit during the talks given by Elder Cook, Elder Oaks, and Elder Rasband, up until I got on this site.

With Elder Cook, there was a lot of criticism of how he didn’t acknowledge that the church had a racist past—but he did. It was brief, but he said something that I don’t think could have applied to anything else. But this was ignored. From my perspective, his argument was using our spiritual ancestors (specifically our non-racist ones) as an example for how we should pattern our lives. But I’ve seen no one mention this interpretation. It seems clear to me that, in argumentation terms, he was not shown the ‘principle of charity’ (1). Maybe this is because he didn’t use the vocabulary that people on here associate with what he meant to say, I don’t know.

With Elder Rasband, there was criticism that he was trying to make a legal process within the church into something spiritual. But when I was listening to the talk, as someone who has struggled with being worthy to hold a temple recommend, it meant a lot. It gave me a more thorough understanding of my goal. And it can also be applied to general temple worthiness—and my belief is that anyone who didn’t need the words about temple recommends and still gave his words the ‘principle of charity,’ would see past his plain words and to the spiritual meaning beneath. I didn’t even understand why people thought of his talk the way they did, until I realized that he came after Elder Cook—in other words, because people were already primed to take his words badly, they did.

Last of all was Elder Oaks, who stood up strongly for what he believes, and what he believes that God had told him to say during the months of preparation he spent for this conference—and when I listened to the talk, I heard equal condemnation of racism and violence. My friend heard a more direct message against racism. Yet in this community, people criticized him for it. Specifically, people criticized him for being America-centric when he opened the talk by acknowledging that it was going to be so. With Elder Oaks, of course it has a history. He’s very direct with what God tells him to say, and at times that has led to people, especially members of the LGBT+ community, being hurt. But when I went back and watched those talks about the LGBT+ community, without the angry comments of this community to distract me, I saw how much he spoke of loving the members of the LGBT+ community, those very same people that this community perceived him as only speaking of hating. And in this latest talk, I have no doubt that the difference between perceptions comes from the fact that people who believe his previous talks were harmful refuse to give him the ‘principle of charity.’ When he says that we should love our enemies, they see it as condemning only their side, while not realizing that if they truly listened, it would not only be a condemnation of both extremes, but also, and I don’t know how to say this more gently, a rebuke of their own unloving actions within this community.

I remember years ago (I’m sorry I don’t have the post saved so that I could show you proof of this), there was a post going around that many people took to be pro LGBT+, and included some sentiments that indicated that people shouldn’t listen to the prophet above what they personally believe to be true. A member of the community took issue with this, I believe voicing that it was extreme. They were jumped on by many other members of the community who took their comment to mean that they were anti-LGBT+. As I recall, the comments were not cruel, but they were certainly not understanding or kind. The member who was jumped on only said something in the tags along the lines of ‘Hmm. I believe I have been misunderstood,’ because if I recall correctly, they were pro-LGBT+. I believe they left tumblr, or at least tumblrstake, not long after that. (If I’d taken a screenshot, I could show you—let this be a lesson in keeping your sources lol)

After all of the things that I’ve outlined above—and these are only examples, not the whole story—I don’t know how to say this gently while still being direct. This community needs Elder Oaks’ talk. This community does not love its enemies. This community does not give anyone the benefit of the doubt. In some ways, what I just said is untrue—ex-members are not pushed away or mocked. People who have problems with the church are not dismissed. And what wonderful attributes these are! I adore this community for how universal these attitudes at least appear to be! But the very prophets and apostles that God directly tells us, in the scriptures, are to look out for our spiritual welfare—the very prophets and apostles that love and worry for all of us—are the people that this community has decided are its enemies. If they are your enemies, and you truly believe in the gospel of Christ, you need to treat them like Christ told you to treat your enemies, to love them by giving their words the benefit of the doubt, to show them the ‘principle of charity.’

When you dismiss the prophets and don’t treat them with the same civility that you justly would an ex-member, or dismiss members of the church that don’t treat the prophets the same way you do, you cannot expect to create a spiritual environment. Especially during conference time, when spiritual strength can be found in actually listening to what the prophets are saying, and not just straw-manning them and assuming that they say either exactly what you want them to say or exactly what you don’t want them to say.

I hope, even in this criticism, you’ve been able to feel the love that I have for this community. I believe that every member in it is a good person, who truly seeks the Spirit and to do what is right. But just as the church continues to grow and change to become more in line with God’s will, this community must change too—and with every year I’ve been here, there has only been a steady decline towards hatred and straw-manning. And this community can be so much more! I’ve seen it be a great place for people to grow spiritually together. I’ve seen it be a refuge for LGBT+ members of the church! But at conference time, whenever a speaker steps up and people perceive (sometimes objectively correctly) a disagreement with their own beliefs, it stops being that place.

I’m leaving now. Love you all.

TLDR; I love this community, but it is slowly becoming a spiritually poisonous place that does not give the prophets the benefit of the doubt or seek for spiritual meaning in talks they disagree with. I’m very bad at TLDRs, so please read the whole post.

(1) I’m using the term ‘principle of charity’ to mean the concept of listening to someone’s argument as the strongest version of their argument that it could possibly be—giving the benefit of the doubt, basically the opposite of straw-manning, etc.

P.S. I wanted to get this out before the second session but editing bled into the second session, so I delayed it so that people could have no interruption in their spirituality if nothing happened in the second session. That’s why I only addressed things in the first session.

P.P.S. Whoops I meant to schedule this. Sorry!

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