I know I said I was going to stop participating in Mormon twitter, but I do want to say one thing...

There is an ever-growing ideological faction of folks within the church who are becoming increasingly militant in both thought and behavior. Their views are aligned with white supremacy, misogyny, bigotry, and they display shocking degrees of intolerance toward

anyone who strays from their own radical, religious literalism. They proudly declare that God has called upon them to punish the unrighteous. Their hateful judgment, they claim, is only the judgement of God being carried out on earth. God’s supposed wrathful angels of justice.

Now, there is not one iota of doubt within me that any of the individual apostles or members of the presidency abhor these views/behaviors and personally condemn them. Yes, even Oaks. The leadership of today, with all of its real and true flaws, is not Deznat.

And here comes the “but”—

I am also absolutely positive that the leadership, on the whole, does not view Deznat as a problem they themselves are responsible to handle.

To the extent that they view Deznat attitudes as a problem, I promise you their solution will always place the onus of fight on local and lay members. À la Holland, if members want to see change in the church, they need to be the ones to make it.

Now, that approach sounds nice and reasonable on the surface. After all, that’s largely how we think about political progress and change, isn’t it? Citizens, through grass work effort, should be able to work within our political system to stimulate change.

And it’s not that I think that thought process is totally out of place re: the church— after all, it is we who make up the bulk of the body of Christ who most directly impact how the gospel touches individual lives. But...

But. The assume this approach/attitude toward protecting the membership and the gospel is sufficient on its own is to completely ignore the fact that the structure of the church does not resemble political democracy in any way whatsoever.

Citizens in democratic states remain citizens no matter what, and unless the state abuses its power, citizens ideally never lose their right to participate in the political process. The complete opposite is true of the church.

There is truly only so much that can be done at the local level— the church has made sure of that fact by excommunicating members who have pushed for change beyond the leadership’s comfort level. The church will not stand for its leaders being seriously, publicly questioned.

Thus, the leadership’s likely attitude that deznat/things like it can only be directly addressed at the local level by those w/ little to no power at all is less of a call for mobilization than it is a cruel, irresponsible deflection. A shirking of the responsibility of authority

Do I ask... as a growing faction of the membership slips into militant religious fascism, does it sit well with you to see watch the leadership do little to respond to it, let alone to do what they can to stop it?

Because it doesn’t sit well with me. And I am tired.

“Stay in the church and be the change you want to see, be what you believe the gospel to truly be” is good, but it only goes so far when members grow increasingly beleaguered and unbacked by those in the hierarchy.

I’m tired.

I’m so tired. I’m tired to the point where I don’t have the mental, emotional, or spiritual capacity to engage anymore. I’m sure there are plenty more like me, and I find it distressing because

I honestly fear that unless the leadership decides to step up and lead, the church I knew and loved and instilled Valmy most precious values while growing up is going to die.

So I guess this big thread in part is an explanation of why I don’t wish to engage Mormonism on here in the foreseeable future, but it’s also in part a plea and a pray that that may not permanently remain the case.

That’s all.