by Reed Comire
LADBible recently produced a sensational documentary about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As is typical of documentaries of this type, the tone is dramatic and scandalous, and overwhelmingly tries to put the church in a negative light.
It focuses on the ex-communication of “Nemo the Mormon”. “Nemo the Mormon” is one of the most influential critics of the church with a huge following on YouTube. It is not uncommon for some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who lose their faith, to try to tear down the faith. And Nemo is not alone in this.
When a computer starts erroring, the best fix is often to reboot it. When people become baptized members of the church, they make promises to God. Sometimes people break those promises in a significant enough manner, that they need to “reboot” their promises. Ex-communication is not a punishment, it is meant to help people restart the promises they made to God at baptism. Private criticism of the church is constructive, but Nemo probably hurt the faith of thousands of people by publicly criticizing. And in order to repent, Nemo’s covenants had to be restarted. Unfortunately, he has not made that choice yet.
It is not uncommon for a critic to try to associate our church with the abuse in the Catholic church years ago. Abuse in our church happens, and it’s never justified, but the rate of abuse in our church is lower than most other religions. No adults are allowed to be alone with youth. There is an abuse hotline. If there is any whisper of abuse, that member will never work with children. I see a church which is trying its best to protect the most vulnerable, using imperfect volunteer clergy.
I don’t see a systemic problem of inappropriate youth interviews. Virtually all religions believe sexual activity outside of marriage creates life damaging problems. I see volunteer Bishops trying their best to help youth keep the standards which will help them be happiest. Sometimes Bishops ask too many questions, sometimes they ask too few. It’s a hard balance. When there are standards for healthy behavior, sometimes people feel guilt and shame when they do not keep those standards. But the church never endorses using guilt. The intent is love and concern.
I don’t see a systemic problem of financial greed in the church. Yes, the church has lots of money. They have made a lot of inspired investments in recent years. But where is the greed if no human being is wealthy because of it? All the income goes to helping people. Not spending all of the church income immediately is not immoral.
All local church leaders, like Bishops, are volunteer. The Catholic church has about 460k paid clergy. The Evangelical church has about 200k. Our church has about 130 full-time clergy who are paid a small “living wage”. “Nemo” probably makes more money criticizing the church than any church clergy earns as a salary.
The church’s focus is spiritual, not physical. Nevertheless, the church spends about $1.5 billion annually for humanitarian efforts, similar to perhaps the most charitable corporation, Wal-Mart. Church members put in 7 million hours in humanitarian work annually. Missionaries put in 400 million hours of volunteer work per year. The University of Pennsylvania estimated each active member spends about 400 hours per year in volunteer work, thus about 2 billion annual hours from regular members.
Is it wise to learn about a religion only from those that are trying to destroy it? We all hope “Nemo the Mormon” restarts his covenants with God, and feels the love and peace that Jesus provides again. He could be a powerful ally of Jesus one day, and I will happily fist-bump him in the pews when he comes back.
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