One of the strongest points Daymon Smith makes in The Book of Mammon regards the danger of conflating corporate, bureaucratic interests with religious belief and orthodoxy. Two of the biggest weird and problematic outcomes of this confluence can be seen by examining correlation and corruption in the Church. Obviously corruption is an issue in most corporations, and some religious institutions, but most corporations can’t fall back on the faith and trust of their customers and most churches, mosques, and synagogues would lose reams of members if they were found to be corrupt. Correlation is an interesting, albeit normal, religious phenomenon, a renewed focus on orthodoxy. It’s something that happened in the early Christian Church, but it’s even more obvious and interesting in the Mormon Church. Presented from a semi-sociological perspective, I found The Book of Mammon to be incredibly thought-provoking and less damning than expected. Mormons, it seems, for the most part are genuine, nice people trying to do the best they can, but the pitfalls of bureaucracy reveal more about the church than is conducive for belief. The inculcation of deep trust in the leaders of the Mormon Church through the process of correlation allows significant abuse, financial and human, to be hidden and to go on unchecked.

One of the big topics Smith covers, correlation reveals the corporate nature of the church more than any other topic he discusses; even the slightly shady financial dealings and inter-departmental fights in the Church Office Building(cob), “There is a small handbook packed with statements uttered by presidents of the Church which are accepted as true by virtue of the office and title of the speaker… By these guides they speak and write ONLY true and pure doctrines.” (Smith kndl loc 3725-31). Stated this bluntly, that sounds pretty bad. Let’s go further back in time though and consider the early Christian Church, specifically the Nicene Creed and who controlled publication and preaching at the time. Various Councils of the prestigious Church leaders met from time to time and eventually established the creed at the First Council of Nicea in 325 AD. These are the official stances of the Church on basic things like the Trinity, creation, and the crucification. These doctrines were disputed in widely popular heresies. Some of these heresies included the claim that Jesus merely possessed a man while on earth to the wild polytheism of the Gnostics. The tenets of the Creed specify the official, therefore correct, stance on theses matters. Similarly, Harold B. Lee, former Mormon Prophet, realized there was a large amount of speculation concerning Mormon doctrine, especially considering the significant doctrinal changes regarding polygamy and Adam in the recent past. Both the Church Councils of early Christianity and the correlation committee created by Lee represent a orthodoxifying of religion after they’ve overcome years of turbulence and stabilized. If you examine other world religions, specifically of Islam, you can see a similar occurrence; the writing and codifying of the Koran and Hadith from the oral tradition. Even if the trend isn’t damning, it does fascinate me as someone who takes exceptional interest in religion. It’s gives the rare opportunity to see a religion stabilizing in real-time; though the internet alters the course.

Re-enforcing Orthodoxy generally seems to provide stability to the main institution and create a sharp distinction between the Church and heretics. It allows the membership to feel confident in their belief, in the Mormon example it means doctrines are stamped by God as true through his Prophet. This confidence, combined with the clarity provided by a book of true statements provides members surety in their orthodoxy and identity; both valuable elements of religious belief. Smith describes correlation, “distributed across Utah, Correlation Department reviewers… fact check,” against the handbook of true statements (kindl loc 3725-30). These reviewers are usually faculty at BYU or members serving in the Church Education System(CES). The primary motivation to correlate orthodoxy, it seems, is to concentrate the influence of the leadership. There are, of course, other consequences of correlation. There’s the money saved by thoroughly fact checking everything, there’s the stiffness and dullness of the doctrine, and there’s unquestioning reliance on the prophet. The money saved comes by not having to print hundreds of versions of things and economies of scale, which is something the very corporate Mormon Church thought of when starting correlation. The explanation for the stiffness of the doctrine is straightforward, but the dullness of the doctrine requires some explanation. The doctrine becomes dull because all of the writers for the church, employed at the COB, rely on completing assignments for their job, so they stick to the most basic, bland doctrines they know will get past correlation. If you need proof of this, watch Mormon General Conference, most of those talks have gone through correlation. Correlation ensures reliance on the Church, presumably the Prophet that personally talks to God, for materials and lessons. The Church decides what is worthy of consumption for many Mormons. One of the primary tenets of the correlated church requires relying on the teachings of the modern prophets before the old. Teaching respect and trust in the leadership is mostly inherent in religion, but when a corporate bureaucracy, like the modern Mormon Church, runs a religion there are bound to be some messes and inefficiencies that are hidden out of respect and faith in the leadership.

Smith provides the details for three such instances in the book, but I think one is sufficient to raise the important questions. In one instance the Church lost close to half a million dollars in an apparent scam. The Church paid an ‘independent’ contractor to hurry the process to get identifications for missionaries in Argentina. The person they hired to hurry the process was apparently bribing officials, but then Argentine police raided the house of a document forger and they found forged missionary IDs, The Church didn’t find out about any of this until the judge overseeing the case warned the Area Authority. What this case, and the others Smith documents, reveals is an interesting mix of bureaucratic inefficiency and pressure with faith in the leadership. The Church, in 1997, found itself in a scandal after the Argentinian government accused them of not having required IDs for missionaries. So the COB put pressure, through the corporate hierarchy, on the right spots and this scam ensued. The issue isn’t so much that there’s pressure to do illegal things, though that is an issue, it’s that the Church had no idea this was happening, even though the guy was arrested and arraigned. There isn’t sufficient oversight in place. It’s not there because the leaders and members have faith in the church employees, after all, they are working for God.

Examining correlation reveals a number of problems, but on its face it doesn’t necessarily impugn the truth claims of the church; though some would suggest the need for correlation is proof in itself. It reveals a concentration in the influence of the official church, which includes faith and trust in the leaders that empirical evidence doesn’t support. This faith is then abused to hide flaws and inefficiencies in the church leadership and Church Office Building. Though flawed, due to the corporate structure, which isn’t completely described here, but is in Smith’s book, there is a belief the actions of the Church come from divine inspiration and therefore must be true. Sure, there is the common refrain, ‘they’re just men.’ That’s the response when someone points to an error or to the surprising doctrinal history of the Church, but isn’t part of the expectations and judgments Mormon’s make of leadership decisions. This disconnect relies on the insulation of correlation to deflect hard questions. If the Church is asking to be trusted and viewed as inspired, literally speaking to God, then they should be open about problems in the leadership, doctrine, and history of the Church. The secrecy, in a modern, connected, and enlightened world, is not only a flaw, but is a serious problem for the Church. It’s hard to maintain high retention levels when everyone can Google the Church and find something damning. They can even stay within Church approved texts and websites, but still find damning evidence that is passed over due to its impropriety. The truth will set us free, they say, and people love freedom, so we’re going to find the truth out of an inherent drive to be free. The options are to present the truth, with all the ugliness, and explain it and contextualize it in a way the allows members to continue believing or let them find the ugly truth without context or explanation. The Church has mostly opted for the second, so it continues to lose members.

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A Note on the Fourth Paragraph: My kindle broke earlier today, so I couldn’t quote or provide the level of detail I wanted for that example. I think I got the point I was trying to make across reasonably well though. It would’ve been better and clearer if I had my kindle, but such is life.

Buy the book, you could probably find someone using Amazon affiliate links and support them, but I’m lazy and hate money, so I don’t have one.