Guest Post by Matthew Nokleby

Matthew recently earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Rice University, and will shortly begin a stint as a post-doctoral associate at Duke University. He also blogs at Doves and Serpents.

As the pantscapade draws to a (temporary?) close, I’ve been searching through the Facebook events page looking for an overarching “lesson” to be learned from all of this. There’s a broad spectrum of enlightenment to be had, of course, but I find particular insight in the commonality in the arguments thrown down by the event’s detractors. I’m struck not so much by the rampant misogyny, the aggressive-to-the-point-of-violence rhetoric, or even the rediculous offenses against spelling and grammar, but that most of the comments evince a mindset that is both rampant in Mormonism and thoroughly, excruciatingly false:

There exists a single and universal Mormonism.

The comments I refer to go something like this: “If you understood the gospel, you would understand that this event destroys the difference between men and women.” Embedded in this statement is the assumption that a study of Mormonism yields a single “gospel” which can be understood precisely, and which entails a sharp sartorial distinction between the sexes. To such an individual, propositions bifurcate without ambiguity — as if through a pair of pants! — into “Mormonism” and “not Mormonism.” I characterize this mindset with the following definition.

Pantsism: The position that Mormonism is a collection of clear, universal truths, which anyone can discover through study, prayer, and personal revelation.

A corollary to this definition is that pantsists, conveniently enough, believe themselves to be in possession of those universal truths. Furthermore, these universal truths — such as the injunction against female pants-wearing — need not be written in any putatively official source. A lump of “The Unwritten Order of Things,” leavened perhaps with Stewart’s “I know it when I see it,” empowers the individual to construct a universal Mormonism from his or her upbringing and personal experience — an objective reality, in other words, as small as one person’s subjective experience. Of course, it never dawns on the pantsist that his or her Mormonism conflicts with that of fellow pantsists a generation — or even a pew — away.

Mormonism, of course, is bigger than this. If there’s anything we’ve learned from the tumult of the Mormon Moment, it’s that Mormonism is anything but unequivocal — on issues as trivial as caffeine consumption and as weighty as who can hold the priesthood. Rather than a crisply-pressed pair of pants, Mormonism is a patchwork skirt — moving, flowing, and adjusting in shape through time and space. Doctrines and practices ebb and flow, and the rhetoric of powerful voices — guess the gender to which those voices belong? — weave their way organically into Mormon discourse. Allow me, then, to characterize the antidote to pantsism.

Skirtism: The position that one should have radical and continuing doubts about Mormonism as she currently perceives it, because she has been impressed by other Mormonisms, Mormonisms taken as universal by people, priesthood leaders, or (Deseret) books she has encountered.

Skirtism doesn’t imply that there exists no universal Mormonism — for all we know, there’s a One True Mormonism floating out in the noumenal — it only requires us to admit that we don’t possess it, no matter where we think we got our Mormonism. Skirtism gives up on “essential” doctrines, freeing its adherents from the burden of imposing those doctrines on others. Yet skirtism is, at present, less seductive than pantsism, and the minority skirtists are overwhelmed by the majority pantsists.

The danger of pantsism isn’t merely that it’s incorrect, but that it results in a culture in which self-correction is impossible. Wear Pants to Church Day, depending on how you parse the event, is about exposing inequalities that aren’t matters of policy or doctrine. Its goal is to exposing inequalities which are entirely cultural, and which members should feel free to combat of their own initiative. Since so many Mormons believe that their cultural norms are part of the Unwritten Order of Things, however, any challenge to cultural norms is perceived as an attack on Mormonism generally. As long as pantsism is the dominant approach to Mormonism, Mormons will only entertain explicit cultural challenges in the form of a written order from church leadership.

I think we all can agree that this isn’t a healthy state of affairs. Certainly upper leadership can’t efficiently address every cultural artifact, and those being damaged by such artifacts shouldn’t have to wait for the slow churn of generational shift. Mormons ought to be able to govern themselves; the problem is that they aren’t being taught correct principles. It is time to preach out against pantsism.