The Shunning Key: Whom Mormons shun and why

Introduction

The lead­ers and man­u­als of The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints fre­quent­ly empha­size broth­er­ly love and char­i­ty to all. Con­sid­er this state­ment by Elder M. Rus­sell Bal­lard:

Let us reach out in friend­ship and love to our neigh­bors, includ­ing those of oth­er faiths, thus help­ing to build bet­ter fam­i­ly-to-fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships and greater har­mo­ny in our neigh­bor­hoods. Remem­ber, too often our behav­ior is a big­ger deter­rent to oth­ers than is our doc­trine. In the spir­it of love for all men, women, and chil­dren, help them to under­stand and to feel accept­ed and appre­ci­at­ed. (empha­sis added) source

Tak­en at face val­ue, this state­ment is incred­i­bly inclu­sive and lov­ing. Yet many for­mer mem­bers describe the loss of close friend­ships and asso­ci­a­tion with believ­ing mem­bers once they leave or ques­tion the Church’s truth-claims.

In a recent pan­el dis­cus­sion an athe­ist who had heard many sto­ries of athe­ists and homo­sex­u­als being kicked out of their LDS homes (which is cer­tain­ly on the extreme end of what most for­mer mem­bers might expe­ri­ence) asked if there was any doc­tri­nal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for this behav­ior (the dis­cus­sion on shun­ning begins at about 17:30):

[Athe­ist] Are you three say­ing to me that there is noth­ing in Mor­monism that pro­duces shun­ning?

[BYU Pro­fes­sor 1] In my faith, there is noth­ing that I have been taught or that I teach that says that we should shun…It’s not a Mor­mon ide­al to shun

[BYU Pro­fes­sor 2] There is noth­ing in Mor­monism that would con­done the type of behav­ior you are talk­ing about.

So, is it pos­si­ble that Mor­mons shun? And how is it pos­si­ble in the face of so many inclu­sive and lov­ing mes­sages such as the one giv­en by Elder Bal­lard and those of the two BYU pro­fes­sors?

The Shunning Key

The key to under­stand­ing most shun­ning in the LDS Church is to real­ize that Lat­ter-day Saints would typ­i­cal­ly nev­er shun some­one who mere­ly left the Church or became less-active—these are the kinds of indi­vid­u­als that Church mem­bers will often reach out to. Offi­cial Lat­ter-day Saint mate­r­i­al is rich in exam­ples of mem­bers reach­ing out to less actives or those who had mere­ly wan­dered from the Gospel path (see this exam­ple).

How­ev­er, while a lost or way­ward “for­mer mem­ber” or “less-active” is not typ­i­cal­ly shunned, there are some cat­e­gories of indi­vid­u­als whom mem­bers are explic­it­ly taught to avoid: false prophets, false teach­ers (used syn­ony­mous­ly with the terms “deceivers” and “antichrists” ), and faith-killers (“apos­tate” is a term some­times used-syn­ony­mous­ly with faith-killers). These terms sound extreme—they must be a rare excep­tion, right? Who are these false prophets, false teach­ers, and faith-killers?

Flee from false teachers and false prophets

M. Rus­sell Bal­lard taught that false prophets and false teach­ers are those who (with minor word­ing changes to make a list):

Declare that the Prophet Joseph Smith was a duplic­i­tous deceiv­er Chal­lenge the First Vision as an authen­tic expe­ri­ence Declare that the Book of Mor­mon and oth­er canon­i­cal works are not ancient records of scrip­ture Attempt to rede­fine the nature of the God­head Deny that God has giv­en and con­tin­ues to give rev­e­la­tion today to His ordained and sus­tained prophets Arro­gant­ly attempt to fash­ion new inter­pre­ta­tions of the scrip­tures to demon­strate that these sacred texts should not be read as God’s words to His chil­dren but mere­ly as the utter­ances of unin­spired men, lim­it­ed by their own prej­u­dices and cul­tur­al bias­es Argue that the scrip­tures require new inter­pre­ta­tion Deny Christ’s Res­ur­rec­tion and Atone­ment, argu­ing that no God can save us Reject the need for a Sav­ior Attempt to rein­ter­pret the doc­trines of the Church to fit their own pre­con­ceived views, and in the process deny Christ and His mes­sian­ic role Those who attempt to change the God-giv­en and scrip­tural­ly based doc­trines that pro­tect the sanc­ti­ty of mar­riage, the divine nature of the fam­i­ly, and the essen­tial doc­trine of per­son­al moral­i­ty Advo­cate a rede­f­i­n­i­tion of moral­i­ty to jus­ti­fy for­ni­ca­tion, adul­tery, and homo­sex­u­al rela­tion­ships Open­ly cham­pi­on the legal­iza­tion of so-called same-gen­der mar­riages To jus­ti­fy their rejec­tion of God’s immutable laws that pro­tect the fam­i­ly, [they] even attack the inspired procla­ma­tion on the fam­i­ly issued to the world in 1995 by the First Pres­i­den­cy and the Twelve Apos­tles

He goes on to warn:

Our safe­ty, our peace, lies in … flee­ing from false prophets and false teach­ers…

Shun faith-killers

In his 1981 talk Oppo­si­tion to the Work of God, Car­los E. Asay instruct­ed mem­bers :

Avoid those who would tear­down your faith. Faith-killers are to be shunned. The seeds which they plant in the minds and hearts of men grow like can­cer and eat away the Spir­it. (empha­sis added)

Asay doesn’t pro­vide a sim­ple list like Bal­lard, but we can walk through his talk to deter­mine the char­ac­ter­is­tics of those he labels “faith-killers”. Accord­ing to his talk (with minor word­ing mod­i­fi­ca­tion), faith-killers:

Use per­son­al con­tacts, the print­ed word, elec­tron­ic media, and oth­er means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion to sow doubts and to dis­turb the peace of true believ­ers Cite changes made in Church pub­li­ca­tions over the years [to dis­cred­it Joseph Smith and sub­se­quent prophets] Do not believe in the New Tes­ta­ment because of dis­crep­an­cies in it Do not believe in mod­ern prophets and con­tin­u­ous rev­e­la­tion Pin their hopes for sal­va­tion upon things oth­er than those relat­ed to liv­ing prophets and liv­ing faith

What con­sti­tutes a “faith-killer” is dri­ven home in Asay’s dis­cus­sion of “a very ded­i­cat­ed apos­tate” towards the begin­ning of his address. This “ded­i­cat­ed apos­tate” did two things: “to dis­cred­it Joseph Smith and sub­se­quent prophets, the apos­tate cit­ed changes made in Church pub­li­ca­tions over the years” and the apos­tate point­ed out this infor­ma­tion to a recent con­vert.

How often do former members qualify?

A recent sur­vey was con­duct­ed on for­mer mem­bers to bet­ter under­stand why they left the Church. The top 5 rea­sons giv­en were:

I ceased to believe in the church’s doctrine/theology (74%)

I stud­ied church his­to­ry and lost my belief (70%)

I lost faith in Joseph Smith (70%)

I lost faith in the Book of Mor­mon (65%)

I lost con­fi­dence in the gen­er­al author­i­ties (50%)

If this sur­vey is at all rep­re­sen­ta­tive of for­mer Mor­mons, the major­i­ty of Mor­mons who leave do so because they do not believe in the core truth-claims of the Church any more. In addi­tion, the major­i­ty of those who dis­be­lieve (53%) now con­sid­er them­selves Agnos­tic, Athe­ist, or Human­ist.

Hence a typ­i­cal for­mer Lat­ter-day Saint, if they ever open­ly dis­cuss their ratio­nale for doubt­ing the Church’s truth-claims or write any­thing online, will eas­i­ly qual­i­fy as a false prophet or false teacher. At a min­i­mum, they will like­ly be a tight fit for Ballard’s cri­te­ria #2, #3, #5, #8, #9, and they will like­ly meet all of Asay’s list char­ac­ter­iz­ing a faith-killer.

Hence, those who leave the Church because they grow tired of liv­ing the lifestyle (“lazy”) or who would rather live a dif­fer­ent lifestyle (“want­i­ng to sin”) are like­ly to be reached out to and fel­low­shipped, at least to a degree. Those who left because they inves­ti­gat­ed the truth-claims and decid­ed the truth-claims are not sus­tain­able are sus­cep­ti­ble to being clas­si­fied as “false prophets”, “false teach­ers”, or “faith-killers” (or alter­na­tive­ly, “deceiv­er”, “anti-Christ”, or “apos­tate”). Those who are will­ing and able to share why they think the Church truth-claims do not hold up, ought to be shunned—according to Bal­lard and Asay—and these con­sti­tute the major­i­ty of those who leave the LDS Church.

Shunning sleight of hand

The quote from the intro­duc­tion used as an exam­ple of inclu­siv­i­ty in LDS teach­ings was from Elder Ballard’s Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence address on false prophets and false teach­ers. I will repro­duce it here:

Let us reach out in friend­ship and love to our neigh­bors, includ­ing those of oth­er faiths, thus help­ing to build bet­ter fam­i­ly-to-fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships and greater har­mo­ny in our neigh­bor­hoods. Remem­ber, too often our behav­ior is a big­ger deter­rent to oth­ers than is our doc­trine. In the spir­it of love for all men, women, and chil­dren, help them to under­stand and to feel accept­ed and appre­ci­at­ed. (empha­sis added)

But, what about “false prophets” and “false teach­ers”? Are mem­bers meant to reach out and help them feel accept­ed and appre­ci­at­ed? Here’s Elder Ballard’s next para­graph:

Let us remem­ber that it is our duty to be faith­ful to the restored truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It takes faith—real faith, total and unreserved—to accept and strive to live prophet­ic coun­sel. Lucifer, the adver­sary of truth, does not want us to feel or exhib­it that kind of faith. He encour­ages dis­obe­di­ence, plant­i­ng defi­ance in the hearts of the unwary. If he is suc­cess­ful, they will turn away from the light into the dark­ness of the world. Our safe­ty, our peace, lies in work­ing as hard as we can to live as the Father and Son would have us live, in flee­ing from false prophets and false teach­ers, and in being anx­ious­ly engaged in good caus­es. (empha­sis added)

So, mem­bers are taught to help “all men, women, and chil­dren … feel accept­ed and appre­ci­at­ed” but to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly “flee” from false prophets and false teachers—and most for­mer mem­bers eas­i­ly qual­i­fy as such.

Penetrance in LDS thought and action

The pat­tern of shun­ning those who speak open­ly about why they do not believe in the Church’s truth claims is fol­lowed in near­ly all offi­cial LDS mate­r­i­al. I’m aware of only one exception—a sto­ry by Elder Ucht­dorf about an ex-mem­ber “David” who debat­ed with mem­bers online and was con­vert­ed through the patient efforts of “Jacob.”

Besides the sto­ry of “David” and “Jacob” giv­en by Elder Ucht­dorf, I am not aware of a sin­gle instance in Church pro­duced mate­r­i­al when some­one who open­ly dis­cuss­es their ratio­nale for reject­ing Church truth-claims is reached out to for fel­low­ship (much less engaged with in sub­stan­tive dis­cus­sion). As pre­sent­ed in offi­cial Church mate­r­i­al, all for­mer mem­bers who are fel­low­shipped either have no intel­lec­tu­al jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for leav­ing or are com­plete­ly silent about their ratio­nale.

The sev­enth tem­ple rec­om­mend ques­tion is a good exam­ple of this atti­tude gen­er­al­ly. The ques­tion asks mem­bers: “Do you sup­port, affil­i­ate with, or agree with any group or indi­vid­ual whose teach­ings or prac­tices are con­trary to or oppose those accept­ed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints?” which strong­ly implies that such affil­i­a­tion is to be avoid­ed or one is not wor­thy of entrance into the tem­ple.

Spotty in practice

Eccle­si­as­ti­cal dis­ci­pline of indi­vid­u­als who have spo­ken out about their dis­be­lief gen­er­al­ly fol­lows the trend described above. To the degree they speak out and adopt the points out­lined by Bal­lard and Asay is gen­er­al­ly the degree to which the indi­vid­ual is like­ly to be shunned (or their like­li­hood of excom­mu­ni­ca­tion for open­ly dis­agree­ing with the Church ).

Although many mem­bers shun “faith-killers” to some degree, oth­er mem­bers either ignore or are not aware of Ballard’s and Asays direc­tion (or sim­i­lar direc­tives in Church lit­er­a­ture). These oth­er mem­bers fol­low the pre­pon­der­ance of mes­sages focused on the inclu­sive and embrac­ing aspects of the Gospel mes­sage and lean towards these when decid­ing how to treat for­mer mem­bers. The ten­sion between avoid­ing those who speak open­ly about their dis­be­lief (and pro­tect­ing oth­ers from their influ­ence) and lov­ing and accept­ing those indi­vid­u­als is demon­strat­ed in the 2017 Fair­Mor­mon pan­el dis­cus­sion Fam­i­ly Mem­bers Who Left.

Moving Forward

The Mor­mon News­room, in speak­ing about dia­log with those of dif­fer­ent reli­gions and those with­out reli­gion, offer up this wis­dom:

We gen­er­al­ly avoid con­tro­ver­sial top­ics (such as pol­i­tics, mon­ey or reli­gion) at the din­ner table. But this can be prob­lem­at­ic because if believ­ers aren’t talk­ing faith with fam­i­ly and friends — espe­cial­ly with those who aren’t reli­gious — we leave the door of mis­un­der­stand­ing wide open…”

Per­haps this coun­sel should be extend­ed to for­mer mem­bers, too—even those who left for intel­lec­tu­al rea­sons and speak open­ly about their ratio­nale? How do mem­bers expect to avoid mis­un­der­stand­ing for­mer mem­bers (and vice ver­sa) if they are not com­mu­ni­cat­ing about these issues? Is it pos­si­ble for mem­bers to dis­cuss the issues open­ly, why they view them dif­fer­ent­ly, and then, as need­ed, polite­ly agree to dis­agree on some top­ics? Is there still room to dis­cuss the issues in order to find com­mon ground?

In anoth­er arti­cle defend­ing reli­gious dia­log, the Mor­mon News­room offered per­haps the best counter to the coun­sel to flee or shun those who have left the Church because they no longer accept the truth-claims:

It feels uncom­fort­able to lis­ten to crit­ics call our cher­ished beliefs into ques­tion, and yet we show strength by engag­ing in sin­cere con­ver­sa­tions with those who oppose our views. After all, we trust that ‘truth will cut its own way’ and love will even­tu­al­ly win out in the con­test of ideals.

Other relevant perspectives

These resources address—from a vari­ety of viewpoints—the ques­tion of how Lat­ter-day Saints should treat or respond to for­mer or dis-believ­ing mem­bers or oth­er­wise dis­cuss the top­ic of shun­ning in the LDS Church.