Hijacking Testimony Meeting for Activism

Through the wonders of facebook I was able to view a video shared by the brother of a friend that showed a 12 year old girl sharing her ‘testimony’ of being gay. Much of what she said was fine, but some of it was direct refutation of church teachings and her plans to go against them. It put her in a place of claiming to know better what the gospel and the commandments should be than the prophets she supposedly sustains.

This was not some spontaneous spirit driven event. It was highly staged. It was video taped and given production value. The ‘testimony’ was several pages written out. She was dressed as a deacon. The language and structure of the ‘testimony’ was far above what a 12 year old would normally come up with. There were words that she had trouble pronouncing. All this is why I chose to look at it as a hijacking of a testimony meeting and why I put the word testimony in quotes when referring to it.

But mostly for this post I wish to share the concern over hijacking testimony meeting in general, with this event as just one example. Every month the church holds a testimony meeting where anyone can come up and say anything they want – until the presiding authority steps in and stops them. I am surprised that this sort of thing does not happen more often, and I would be surprised if this does not happen more frequently in the future.

What is to stop those who wish to advocate for various causes, or those who simply wish to criticize the church, from hijacking these meetings? This could certainly put local leaders in a very difficult position. And if it were to become common might end the practice of testimony meetings all together.

Are my concerns here unfounded? Does this happen more often than I realize? How should church leaders handle this, and is the practice of testimony meeting potentially in jeopardy due to this sort of thing?