The thing that thou doest is not good.

I started out this holiday intending to write something about the church and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Something about how Ezra Taft Benson relentlessly called him a communist, how Cleon Skousen called him a philanderer, about the church's silence on the Arizona MLK holiday debate, etc.

The problem is all that's been hashed and rehashed almost ad nauseum.

 I'm much more interested in the upcoming disciplinary hearing for John Dehlin.  It was a relief to many last year when Dehlin escaped excommunication for his progressive approach to church culture and doctrine.  So many people viewed (and still view) his Mormon Stories podcast as a lifeline, a reason to stay affiliated in some way with the church.  "After all," the reasoning goes, "If a guy like John Dehlin can still call himself a Mormon, notwithstanding all his doubts and his liberal views on matters like Ordain Women and gay marriage, maybe I can stay in the church, too."

This is, of course, notwithstanding the excommunication of Kate Kelly, the recent threatened excommunication and coercion of April Young Bennett, and the rash of formal and informal disciplinary action against so many others.  Every day it seems I either read in the news of a disciplinary hearing against a prominent Mormon, or I hear about someone in our network of friends who is being threatened.  A close friend of my wife was disfellowshipped for her decision as Primary chorister to have the kids just sing the first verse of The Family Is of God (rather than leading them in what she considered a sexist tirade reinforcing harmfully rigid gender roles).  A member of our ward was disfellowshipped last year for posting favorably about Ordain Women on Facebook.  My own wife was reprimanded and released from the Primary Presidency in our ward just a few weeks ago for teaching that families come in lots of forms (because several of the kids in our ward are either foster children, adopted, or are being raised by grandparents).

Sure, there are lots of wards and stakes out there with kind bishops and stake presidents who don't see a need to drag in every outspoken dissident from the ward and subject them to an inquisition.  There's evidence to suggest, however, that the Strengthening Members Committee leans on enough leaders out there to make life in the church plenty uncomfortable for those of us who can't help cocking our heads to one side every once in a while and speaking out in disagreement with the boys in the Church Administration Building.

I've written previously about the purpose of church discipline, in regards to Kate Kelly.  The paradigm at the time was advocacy of polygamy versus advocacy of the ordination of women.  It's a useful paradigm, I think, for those of us who would argue in defense of the critical.

 I remember a time when I was in junior high school, back in the early 1990s.  Everyone was talking about a girl in our school whose family packed up and moved to Manti to practice polygamy and prepare for the apocalypse.  The father had been a prominent member of the stake and actually recruited a few other families to go down with him.  He was obviously excommunicated.

He was certainly not the first to leave the church over polygamy or some other related ultra-orthodox belief.  The question is whether there's really a difference between that guy's advocacy and John Dehlin's.

After all, both point to inconsistencies in the church's history and contemporary practice.  Both criticize church leaders.  Both seek to find like-minded individuals in the church.  It would be too easy, I think, to shrug and point out that polygamy was wrong and immoral from the moment that Joseph started it all, while John Dehlin's criticism, from a progressive standpoint, is simply morally correct.  Ultimately, of course, I would like to see a more progressive minded church that didn't tolerate nonsense from folks like Ezra Taft Benson and Cleon Skousen.  The problem is that we're so infected with that baloney in the first place, and led by such blithering imbeciles to boot, that enforcing doctrinal purity on that level would be nearly impossible.  Until Jesus himself comes back to run things day to day and kindly lifts that burden from his (mostly) well-intentioned leaders here, I think that will have to remain a hopeful dream for most of us.

In the meantime, the better way is pluralism in the church.  As a matter of civil law, at least here in the United States, pluralism is relatively easy.  We delineate crimes, of course, and punish offenders who steal, assault, rape and murder, but allow an enormous range of thoughts, words and actions to roam free through our nation.  E pluribus, unum.  What's crazy about it all is that we still consider ourselves to be one nation.  In fact, the freedom to speak is a point of pride, a part of what we hold as our common bond.  In practice, sure, we call each other out in sometimes the most despicable terms, but at least on a philosophical level, on the level that guides most of our policy decisions, we believe that what makes us American, fundamentally, is our shared belief in the right to criticize each other without discipline from the state.

While there's certainly a distinction between church and state, I would like to see the church narrowly define the "disorderly conduct" that gives rise to disciplinary action.  There's a difference, I think, between someone who calls Thomas Monson a false prophet, and someone who calls him senile or misguided.  There's a difference between someone who attends church but wants a seat with the boys at priesthood session and someone who starts a new church and installs themselves as the head of it.  There's a difference between honest criticism of the humans who lead our church and overt actions intended to dismantle the church.  There's a difference, a very fundamental one, between dissent and apostasy.

The difference is more than whether a member acts "in clear, open, and deliberate public opposition to the Church or its faithful leaders."  After all, Jethro told Moses he was wrong.  Unequivocaly.  Paul told the apostles they were wrong.  Emma told Joseph he was wrong.  None of them were cast out for apostasy.  Yet they went beyond simple questioning.  In the case of Paul, he actually publicly crusaded against the majority view of the Twelve, baptizing the Gentiles and proclaiming his right to do so notwithstanding the position of the brethren.   

Of course, one difference is that Moses received the criticism.  So did Peter and Joseph.  One might even argue that our own church received criticism, eventually, on questions of dissent, such as the race-based priesthood ban and even whether women are allowed to view the priesthood session (in some form).  So, criticism is okay if leaders receive it (sooner or later)?

Small comfort that would be to those of us who are neither time travelers nor clairvoyant.    

Perhaps criticism is okay only if your son in law or husband is the prophet?  Again, where would that place Paul?  Or if you're a leader such as a Seventy or a member of the Quorum of the Twelve?  Yet the church went after William Law in no uncertain terms.

The church's publicly stated position is no position at all.  It's hands-off (publicly, yet see Denver Snuffer) from the top and let the local bishops and stake presidents sort it out.  But what do you do if, in the case of John Dehlin, your previously sympathetic stake president gets released and a new sheriff gallops into town?  Are we really to accept that apostasy is a matter best left to the locals?

Sure, Kate and John can both appeal to the First Presidency.  Kate already has.  We'll see what happens with John.  Theoretically, their appeals should be the final word.  Given that Dallin Oaks has no small sway up at the top, though, I'm not hopeful for much more than the same kind of response someone might get from any other supreme court, that the fact finder has spoken and there was no error in procedure.

It is irony, I suppose, that Ezra Taft Benson formed the Strengthening Members Committee shortly after becoming President of the church.  This is the same man whose public pronouncements so embarrassed and infuriated the brethren that they sent him off to Europe on a mission to get him to tone it down (to little effect, unfortunately).  Yet they didn't release him from his calling.  They didn't disfellowship him.  Better, perhaps, that they had.

Someone, somewhere, though, thought better of it.  Brother Benson, for all his crass, offensive, bluster, had something to say that could be said without punishment.  And so what if he was wrong?  So what if he persisted with his John Birch nonsense, railing against Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, despite receiving counsel?  He believed in the church.  Even if he disagreed with Joseph Fielding Smith and Hugh B. Brown.  On a fundamental level, he shared common ground with all of us who call ourselves Mormon, who aspire to be Latter-day Saints.  He wanted to be a Mormon and be counted with the rest of us who wander in the wilderness in search of our promised land.

Why cast him out?  Why cast out John?  Why not welcome Kate back in fellowship?  If Peter could live with Paul, if Emma could live with Joseph, if I can live with the crazies in my ward (even if, spirit willing, I take extended breaks of inactivity from them), surely the church can live with occasional criticism.  Sometimes, criticism is correct and church leaders become better for receiving it.