By now, you’ve probably heard what happened to Jeremy Runnells last week. In a nutshell, he arrived at his disciplinary council with a list of questions and learned that in church court, the defense has no right to cross-examine!! So he presented his court with his letter of resignation from the church.
The video of the court was posted online and has been transcribed. After the church refused to explain what was wrong with what he posted, Jeremy responded, “I don’t know how to repent of the truth.”
This just seems like such a dumb move from the church’s perspective.
Here’s a representative example of the other side’s perspective:
I think Jeremy would have been surprised just to see how many of the questions he had have been addressed by historians over the past half-century (for example, the archives to Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought are free and available online, offering over fifty years of thoughtful scholarship).
This sort of response really sticks in my craw: The answers are out there, take my word for it! If you can’t find them, you didn’t look hard enough. Try pouring through the archives of the last 50 years of Dialogue (that should keep you busy!). But don’t expect your leaders to have any answers. And whatever you do, don’t try to crowd-source it because then you will be ex’d. Just keep your mouth shut so that everybody else will think you see the emperor’s clothes found satisfactory answers to your questions.
But even excommunicating Jeremy Runnells couldn’t keep the church’s most horrifying current scandal out of the national and international news: BYU’s policy of systematically starting an honor code investigation on everyone who reports being sexually assaulted, which can potentially lead to expulsion (of the victim). Let the airing of opinions commence!
Utah decided to respond by further whipping its favorite bogeyman.
But maybe they’re improving…?
Many are mourning Prince, who challenged the gender stereotypes Mormons hold so dear.
Also, the world celebrated Earth Day, although, sadly mourning is probably more appropriate for that one as well…
In personal stories, Kiley connected with her new name.
In books, a new review of the Mormon Feminism anthology, and one for the book that explains modern Mormonism.
Well, it’s been a pretty exciting week for Mormonism! Here’s to watching how it all turns out! Have a great week.
“Yeah, there are answers. Trust us.” This approach worked for decades. When Fawn Brodie wrote her book, Hugh Nibley wrote a response, which few people read. They trusted him. I started reading it, but stopped because it looked to me like all it did was slam Brodie and dodge the issues. I have to admit that I didn’t read very far into it, so maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it got better.
Mourning for the earth is right. I wish there were something to celebrate.