I recently listened to a podcast by John Dehlin where he interviewed Richard Packham. According to John’s write-up of the podcast, part of his purpose is to “explore 3 ways in which the LDS Church creates unnecessary enemies.” The second episode focuses on how the Church makes by “breaking up families (when one no longer believes).” It is this particular point of John’s (and many who are critical of the Church) that I wanted to comment upon, although I will also provide a few comments on the podcast episodes with Richard as a whole.
During the course of the interviews (which take over 2-1/2 hours) Richard tells of his life in the Church and how, after he moved from his sheltered existence in Utah, he discovered that the Church wasn’t true while he was in college in Illinois. He tells how, after much time studying in the university library, that he came home one day and announced to his wife that the Church wasn’t true.
In further explaining what happened to him, Richard goes on to explain how he decided that since he no longer believed the Church to be true that it didn’t matter whether he followed the Word of Wisdom and it didn’t matter whether he continued to wear his temple garments. He would choose to go to parties, without his wife, and enjoy the lifestyle enjoyed by other university students. This led to troubles between Richard and his wife.
One day he came home and found his wife and children gone. He discovered the next day that they had taken the train back to Idaho, and it wasn’t long after that a divorce was sought and granted.
Richard explained how he has come to feel that this crumbling of the marriage was the fault of the Church. It may be indirectly, but it is nonetheless the Church’s fault because of its teachings. After all, there was no abuse, he tried to be a good father, and the only thing that changed were his beliefs about the Church. John agreed that this is terrible, and (paraphrasing) that the Church should change so that it isn’t responsible for such occurrences.
Personally, I think that Richard is justifying the bad things that happened during the dissolution of the marriage in a way that that doesn’t implicate his decisions. John, trying to be empathetic to the things that others go through, actively supported Richard in his characterizations of the past.
Richard doesn’t stop with blaming the Church for the breakup of his marriage, however. In wrapping up the discussion about the dissolution of his marriage and the Church’s complicity in the events, he states that “it isn’t just an intellectual decision that the Church isn’t what it claims to be…there is evil there. Evil things are happening” because of the Church’s teachings about family and marriage.
Hogwash.
What did Richard expect? He “discovers” that the Church isn’t true, surprises his wife with the announcement as a fact, changes his values and his behavior, and then (in late life) blames his first marriage’s dissolution on the teachings of the Church. Neither Richard nor John provided much empathy for the wife (although Richard invited John to interview her). The implication in support of the assertion that the Church breaks up families is that, just perhaps, the wife shouldn’t feel betrayed by the path that Richard decided to take in his life. Perhaps she should be able to overlook his decision and continue to love him.
One of the prime reasons for the breakup of marriages—in or out of the Church—is infidelity. According to Wikipedia:
Infidelity is a violation of the mutually agreed-upon rules or boundaries of an intimate relationship, which constitutes a significant to extreme breach, or outright default, on the implicit good faith contract of a relationship, or a betrayal of core shared values with which the integrity and nature of the relationship is defined.
Were there any “mutually agreed-upon rules or boundaries” in Richard’s first marriage? Undoubtedly; there are in any marriage. Did his first wife feel that Richard had violated those boundaries and that an “extreme breach” or “outright default” of their relationship had occurred? Perhaps. Did she feel a “betrayal of core shared values with which the integrity and nature of the relationship is defined.” Probably.
Yet it is the Church’s fault.
Sure it is.
Nobody should take my comments as “dumping” on Richard. I actually think that Richard is a nice enough guy. John indicates in his write-up that it was his intent to explore his three points about the Church “via Richard’s own personal story.” If John (and Richard) feel it appropriate to use Richard’s story in support of the points, it is equally appropriate to examine Richard’s story in countering the points.
The fact is, John and Richard, in their story telling, are plain wrong. It is inappropriate to blame the Church for the natural outcome of individual choices. Even Richard stated in the interview that if he had remained in the Church, no doubt he would still be married to his first wife. It was his choice to leave, and I can hardly blame the wife for feeling betrayed at Richard’s intellectual infidelity to the “mutually agreed-upon rules or boundaries” that were part and parcel of their relationship.
It wasn’t the Church; it was Richard, and John doesn’t even see it.
At first blush, my immediate reaction is that this piece perfectly describes a major disease that we moderns are suffering from, namely, a complete lack of accepting consequences for our actions.
There seems to be a total deficit in understanding this point.
In blaming the Church, Richard takes the intellectually vacuous and infantile road.
John D. and Packham, two of my favorite misguided folk [gag].
Oh my…. another example of someone needing someone or something to blame for their own mistakes. It’s interesting, people say that when they leave the church that their family disowns them. In reality, they do it to themselves. My family fell away and it wasn’t me who had the problem. It was them. Of course it was DARN hard for me, BUT they wouldn’t stop trying to convince me of their “findings” and how they think it isn’t true. It was pulling me down constantly and i didn’t want to talk to them b/c they wouldn’t stop. They pushed me away. I didn’t do anything. This poor guy needs to take responsibility for his own actions.
Hmm. We’re giving the wife a little bit of a pass, no? What happened to the idea of working things out? Maybe he was going through a phase… As long as he hadn’t actually committed infidelity, were his actions valid reasons for a divorce?
Agreed – he’s taking the weasil-y way out here. But we shouldn’t celebrate spouses who up and file for divorce at the first sign of trouble… Where was the counseling?
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” (Matthew 10:34-35) Or in this case, a husband against his wife. I guess Richard is just doing his best to fulfill Christ’s words. 😉
No pass, really, and Richard never indicated it was at the first sign of trouble.
He indicated (in the interview with John) that the marriage dissolved over the course of a few years. Richard declared his discovery that the Church wasn’t true when he was attending university in Illinois. A few years later when the wife left, they were living in Maryland.
Richard’s wife left with the kids at that time. Richard then filed for legal separation. When Richard went back to Idaho to visit his wife and children for the first time several months later (at the end of the school year), she served him with papers for divorce.
-Allen
Wait- he goes to parties and has an “animal house” lifestyle while leaving his wife and kids at home, and wonders why she left? Is he majoring in being obtuse?
Huh?
I listened to that interview just a couple of weeks ago (I’m very behind on podcast listening), and there were things in that story that bothered me, but I am remembering some criticism by both Richard and John with regard to the wisdom of Richard doing the things he did. There was no pass given, nor requested, and total blame was not laid on the Church for what took place.
But the purpose of the exercise was to help people in the Church understand how things that make sense from a Mormon perspective can build lots of resentment and hostility by those outside the Mormon world, which is a useful thing, if you can listen without getting defensive (and it appears that you weren’t able to do so). Richard and wife both made the choices that ended their marriage, and the Church as they understood it contributed to their choices. It is not at all a lock that one should divorce a spouse who no longer believes in the Church, nor should it be. I don’t remember “unless you leave the Church” as part of the marriage covenant — do you?
As to the “and John doesn’t even see it,” that’s just, well, Hogwash. If you’ve been listening at all since MS came back to the net, you’ve heard John interview not a few couples who have gone through this, and he has pointed out (not just once or twice) how losing faith in the Church is a significant deal changer, and that the faithful spouse could quite reasonably feel betrayed in response to that.
Richard has several reasons for resenting the Church, and, having listened to them, they aren’t entirely of his imagining. Most of his problems are really with individual Mormons, but he has a point concerning how those individuals bad behavior could have been better responded to by the greater Mormon community. His brother-in-law treated his sister quite badly, exercising what sounds very much like unrighteous dominion a la D&C 121, and, yet, he had no one challenge that treatment of the wife, which contributed a lot to her depression and ultimate suicide. And the white-washing of her depression, alcoholism and depression is another thing to legitimately gripe about. Mormon Culture is a lot about appearing perfect, and hiding the flaws we all have, and that leads to all kinds of sick, twisted crap.
Now, I don’t at all mind if you don’t care for Richard, John or, for that matter, me. But I would encourage anybody who thinks they have an opinion about Richard based solely on your description of it to listen to the interview for themselves, and to do so without the standard Mormon approach that “anything negative about the Church is an attack against the Church, and is necessarily wrong.” I don’t agree with Richard about the validity of the Church, and I very much disagree with many of the choices he made after he came to his conclusion that the Church wasn’t true. John certainly doesn’t get everything right either, nor does he claim to. But I don’t think you’ve fairly or accurately described the contents of this interview, and I don’t think your description should stand unchallenged.
So I’m challenging it.
Blain,
Perhaps you’ve read too much into what I have written or, perhaps, I didn’t write clearly enough for you to understand.
I like Richard; as I said in the interview, he is a nice enough guy. In the limited personal interactions I’ve had with him (which I’m sure he wouldn’t remember–they were that limited) he was kind and generous. I, like you, may not agree with many of his decisions.
But that is the whole point, isn’t it? They are his decisions. It is improper to lay the blame for his failed marriage on the Church instead of on his own decisions. To say that there is real “evil” in the Church when it comes to marriage and family is a classic case of blame-shifting.
I don’t think that anyone should dismiss Richard or John based on the contents of my post. As I thought I made clear, I was challenging a single point that John was making, using Richard’s experience as the prime evidence.
I don’t believe that Richard’s experience is evidence of John’s assertion that the Church breaks up families. Apparently John does believe that, or he wouldn’t have made the assertion the centerpoint of his threesome on the podcast’s webpage. Apparently he thought Richard’s experience to be strong enough evidence that he didn’t even challenge it, as he did some other of Richard’s assertions in the interview. I’d invite John to clarify how he feels about Richard’s experience and how the Church breaks up families.
Again, I wasn’t trying to describe the contents of the whole interview; you give me too much credit. I was addressing a single point. If you would like to address that point and how Richard’s experience fits (or doesn’t fit) that point, please do so.
-Allen
I agree that being raised in the Church can be dangerous to family life if one spouse changes their religious opinion. I went through quite a struggle after concluding, like Packham, that the Church is not what it claims to be. There was no infidelity or sin – no promises betrayed. It was a change of mind. We should be allowed to do that without it destroying our marriage.
Luckily my wife and I saved our marriage. But it was tough – and we are very good at communicating. The problem was that the LDS church teaches that apostasy results from some sort of sinful behavior, and is inherently wrong. If your spouse leaves the church, they can no longer get into the celestial kingdom. This is the whole purpose of marriage and life to begin with. So, one can easily conclude that staying in this sort of marriage (where one spouse is in the church, another out) is a dead end.
Our families and friends were not very supportive either. My wife’s family and friends said everything except “leave your husband, you deserve better.” Some actually did say that, and were not supportive of her staying with me. Luckily she saw how stupid it was to leave your spouse because he did some honest research about Church history to resolve lingering doubts, and concluded differently. Others I know haven’t been as lucky.
Allen — You’re clearly not getting my point, which is that neither John nor Richard blamed the Church for the end of Richard’s marriage. Richard specifically stated, with John’s cooperation, that he made choices that he thinks were unwise, and that contributed significantly to the end of his marriage. Richard’s exploration of alcohol, and his expectation that his wife would simply accept his conclusion that the Church was false and join him in his new life were two examples I can remember just off the top of my head. They didn’t say what you said they said. They weren’t making the points you are attributing to them.
Rather, the most they were saying is that there are things within the Church which contributed to the break down of his marriage which are still at play for folks undergoing a loss of faith. They include the attitude (which is not a teaching) that loss of faith by a spouse justifies divorcing them so you can seek a faithful spouse to have as an eternal companion. The folks at Faces East could say more, both about that attitude and about their differences with it. I think this point is valid. It’s one that John has been exploring at length since MS came back, and his goal is to help keep these marriages together where possible — I find that goal worthy. I’ve co-moderated several mail lists for LDS folks going through divorce for more than a decade, and this is a profile for broken marriages that I’ve been very uncomfortable with, and it’s among the more common profiles we see.
I don’t think your intention here was to trash John nor Richard (although slapping the “Anti-Mormon critics” tag on this does have that effect on John in particular, and does so unfairly IMO). It sounds particularly like you fell into the idea that anything uncomfortable about the Church must be wrong, and must be proven so, and that’s the kind of apologetics I find the least acceptable. The Church is not perfect, and has made mistakes over the years, and pretending otherwise undermines the legitimacy of the valid points (generic) you make. That’s directed at (generic) you because I don’t know you specifically well enough to know how much this point might apply to you, if at all. I’ve gotten the impression that it might, and offer it to you for your consideration.
More fairly stated than you have, I find merits in John’s point, and have some sympathy for Richard in his experience. I have seen many marriages, including my own, fall apart due to the choices made with the best of intentions, and I have see the Church be less-than-helpful to those going through this. Some of that has been because people aren’t really taught how to be effective in helping people through it, and some of it is from counter-productive attitudes which are common in Mormon culture. If you can hear those points in what Richard is saying, then you might be able to hear them from others who have been through similar experiences, and might be able to learn about your own contribution to the problem and how you can contribute more to the solution instead.
Blain,
I’m beginning to think that you really haven’t listened to the interview between John and Richard. You said that I don’t get your point, which you state is that “neither John nor Richard blamed the Church for the end of Richard’s marriage.”
I get your point—honestly. But you are simply wrong. I don’t have to try to convince you of that, however. Here is the transcript of part two of the interview, beginning at 32:43 into the segment:
Read what was said, Blain. Both John and Richard do exactly what I said they do—they blame the Church for the breakup.
Now, my whole point is that people enter into relationships (such as marriage) based upon shared common values. Those values could be almost anything; in the case of Richard and his first wife, it is relatively clear (and I believe that Richard would agree) that the shared common values revolved around the values that they learned at Church. When one partner later has a change of heart and, effectively, says that those values that they once shared are of no importance, than that presents the marriage with a huge problem. As I pointed out in the original post, the abandonment of shared common values is a form of infidelity.
Can a marriage get past the jettisoning of the shared common values upon which the relationship was originally built? Sure. But it is a lot of hard work as the couple replaces those original shared common values with a new set of shared common values that both can agree upon. If they are unsuccessful in performing that replacement, there is very little hope for the marriage.
But blaming the Church for the decision of one of the partners to unilaterally jettison the values is, once again, blame shifting.
This isn’t an exercise in defending “anything uncomfortable about the Church.” I would say that Richard and John were wrong about this if the shared common values being jettisoned were any other value set, as well. It isn’t the value set that is the issue; it is the unilateral decision by one spouse to throw out the previously shared values upon which the other spouse thought the marriage was based.
-Allen
Oh, one other thing…
The categorization of my post using the “Anti-Mormon critics” tag was not because of John. It was because of Richard. Both Richard and John would agree that Richard is an anti-Mormon. I’m sorry if you thought it was a slam against John; it wasn’t.
-Allen
Since I have no idea who this Richard Packham is…I’ll refrain from commenting on that portion of it. I know some things about John, but frankly, not much.
My take?
ANY belief system that exists is going to cause marital tension if that marriage started with both holding to it, and one later abandoning it. End of story.
You could just as easily state that Catholicism breaks up families as the LDS church. Or Judaism, or Islam, or Hindu. Perhaps not Buddhism, but I’m sure it’s been used as an excuse.
Accusing the Church of breaking up families when one person in a marriage has undergone a serious revision of beliefs and behaviors is petty and should be beneath any reasoning adult.
I would heartily agree with ben, but I’d like to take the analysis one step further:
Imagine, for example, that a Baptist had stopped believing the Baptist creeds, but married a Baptist girl–as a Baptist–AFTER becoming an unbeliever in the Baptist credo. When his unbelief became known after that marriage, wouldn’t the wife have a right to fell betrayed and lied to? After all, she had been led to believe that she was marrying a Baptist believer. For the husband to blame the wife for believing that–or to blame the Baptists for the resulting split–strikes me as HIGHLY lacking in integrity.
I see the same in Richard Packham. As I understand, he had stopped believing LDS theology in college, then married an LDS girl in an LDS ceremony, leading the wife to believe that he was a faithful Latter-day Saint. When Packham’s unbelief became known, frankly, I cannot see how this can NOT be a strain on the marriage, nor can I see how the Church could be at fault here at all.
Richard Pakham, however, isn’t alone in this. I have seen too many instances where unbelievers married LDS spouses in the Temple, and, when the unbelief became known, it wreaked havoc, not only on the marriage, but also in the the lives of the children.
To me, that is unconscionable.
Thanks for the comments, Steve. I need to offer one correction to what you have said.
Richard was married to his first wife in the temple before leaving Utah to attend university in Illinois. They went as a family, and had at least one young child.
According to Richard he and his wife were both believing members of the Church until Richard tried to answer criticisms leveled against the LDS faith and, particularly, the history of the Church by his classmates in college.
Thus, the correction: college and disbelief came after getting married, not before.
-Allen
Thank you for the correction, Allen! That cerainly makes Mr. Packham much less nefarious! Still, as ben suggested, having different religious views equals different Weltanshauungen, which is a strain on any relationship. [My wife and I are in opposing political parties; imagine how dicey things get around election day! 😉 ]
Just as it’s neither the Democrats’ nor Republicans’ fault for our occasional marital stress, neither is it the fault of Church nor Mr. Packham’s present group for the breakup of their marriage.
Allen — I hate the concept of blame, because it doesn’t spread well. If you are to blame for something, then no one else has any responsibility in it. I much prefer to talk about responsibility, because it is morally neutral inherently, and much more spreadable.
Now, you’ve quoted the section of the interview that you found objectionable, and that helps. But you’ve also extracted it from the greater context, and taken a sloppy usage of the concept of blame to present what was said as meaning something it wasn’t necessarily intended to. In the context, I think they were trying to use “blame” in a more spreadable sense that the Church had some contribution to the problem. That is consistent with the other examples I’ve brought up twice that you’ve never acknowledged or addressed, so I’m not going to bother to repeat it yet again — I’ve already pointed it out. So they aren’t laying total responsibility for these breakups on the Church, nor are they defining if they’re talking about official Church teachings and policies, Church leaders, or common attitudes among Church members.
Presented the way you have, it almost sounds like Richard is claiming to be an innocent victim, who was walking down the street, minding his own business, and Pres. McKay pulled up and shot his marriage dead for no reason. And that’s simply not what is being said.
Now, I would prefer to have seen some better definition on where, exactly, they saw these contributions to the problem, because I do think there’s something in there. As I pointed out (and, again, you haven’t acknowledged), this problem where people find a spouses disaffection from the Church to be grounds for divorce are not uncommon, and do cause a great deal of pain and suffering, and are quite possible to avoid. Many people in that situation have worked hard and found ways to keep their marriage together — I know a number of them personally — and I have pointed to a blog that supports them in that.
Richard is less interested in exploring this part of things than he is in trashing the Church — he has huge resentment toward the Church (which, again, is not without some validity) and has invested a great deal of time and effort into the ex-Mo community — so I’m not surprised he didn’t explore the part of this I would have preferred. John didn’t pursue it because the interview was more about eliciting Richard’s experience than in expressing John’s opinions. However, both made other comments that you’ve not included in your quote which mitigate against the conclusion you’re trying to draw from them.
I appreciate your clarification, now, that you were not applying the label “anti-Mormon critic” to John. Perhaps, the next time you apply the tag to a conversation, you can differentiate the person you’re not applying it to somewhere in the text if there is someone there you’re not trying to apply it to. Clarity is good.
Whatever happened to blaming the wife? It’s not as if the Danites rode up to his house and kidnapped his family. She had enough of him and left.
Oh no, wait, I forgot. TBM’s are brainwashed, unsophisticated twits that can’t think for themselves. Hence, it is the Church’s fault.
Give me a break.
Pedro — It’s a little more complex than that. From his account, she did not separate intending to lead to a divorce, so much as she intended to persuade him to change his ways. She told him that she would bring the children back if he returned to Church. This was not an uncommon tactic of the time — taking the children and leaving was a major power play intended to change the power balance in the marriage. At the time, divorce was seen with more stigma, so it was expected that the men would give in to avoid divorce. Except it didn’t always work, and not a few divorces resulted from it.
Blain- You’re just making my point brother. You used the word “she” 4x’s in that statement. The Church didn’t make her do anything. She chose to do those things.
Yeah, but she choose to do them for a variety of reasons, some of which had to do with her understanding of what the Church wanted her to do. That she made the choices is obvious and uninteresting. If that’s your point, have fun with it, but I don’t see it going anywhere.
But there’s meat to be found in the reasons she made those decisions, because they have some relevance today. People make similar choices for similar reasons, and the Church certainly plays a role in that. Not so much things that have been taught by leaders lately as for things taught by leaders in the past as filtered through Mormon Culture. Now, we can get all defensive and say “everybody in the Church makes their own decisions, and the Church doesn’t make them choose the way they do,” but that’s disingenuous, and denies us the chance of learning and making things work differently in the future. What John’s trying to do is reduce the number of divorces people leaving the Church experience, and I think that’s a good thing.
Interesting reply, Blain. You state that those who say that individuals are responsible for their own actions (at least in this context) are being defensive, disingenuous (insincere), and unwilling to learn.
That’s an interesting alternative to promoting personal responsibility. (And, I must say, an interesting tactic in stereotyping those with whom you disagree.)
You say that “there’s meat to be found in the reasons she made those decisions,” and that may well be—you could be right. However, we don’t know the reasons she made those decisions. We can only guess at the basis for decisions she made over 50 years ago. She left no writings and has done no interviews, that I know of. Even Richard said that she may have an entirely different take on the reasons than he did. To pigeonhole her in hindsight seems awfully convenient.
But, then again, perhaps I’m just being defensive, insincere, and unwilling to learn.
-Allen
Definitely disingenuous, as you continually try to distort what I’m saying. I don’t talk long with people who do that. So let me make some clear statements that are 100% compatible with what I’ve said before, but contradict your claims about what I said:
Everyone is responsible for their own choices and the consequences of those choices. Responsibility can be tempered a bit to reflect how much of an understanding the person has about what the consequences of the choice will be, but it can’t be mitigated away.
In this context, that means Richard is responsible for his choices, and his wife is responsible for hers, and they both share responsibility for their marriages successes and, ultimately, for its failure. It also means that the members of the Church who helped propagate and reinforce the notions that contributed to her choice to use separation to try to manipulate him into coming back to the Church are responsible for that contribution as well. They didn’t cause the divorce, but they did help to make it more likely, even though that was not their intention.
People in positions of the leadership have authority that goes with their callings, and where there is authority, there is responsibility for how that authority is used. If you have a position of authority, and you tell someone what they should do, and they rely on you advice because of the authority you bear, you bear a responsibility for what you told them, and share in responsibility for the outcome of them doing what you said.
There’s not enough information in the interview to apportion the shared responsibility to individuals beyond Richard and his wife, so I’m not going to attempt to do so. But that unspecified responsibility shared by those in leadership positions and the other outlets of Mormon Culture that encouraged his wife to do what she did is worthy of exploration, because those cultural memes can still be found in the wild, and they are still contributing to divorces and suffering similar to what happened in Richard’s case.
I think we can make some educated guesses at what her reasons were for what she did. We’ve been raised in a similar culture, both in the greater society and in the Church, and can see things in Richard’s account of what he did that his narrative shows she was unhappy about. Such guessing has already happened in the thread, and you showed no discomfort with it then.
Insincere? I don’t know. You certainly seem more interested in picking at what I say to find the parts you think you can “win” by arguing against than you are in trying to understand what I’m talking about and finding meritorious ways to apply it. I really don’t enjoy talking with people who are more interested in “winning” the “argument” than they are in gaining a better understanding of truth. I don’t mind a little full-contact conversation if it helps get to something meaningful, but I’m not seeing that here. I see no willingness to learn on your part here, because, any time you are shown something you can’t argue with, you just ignore it, and turn to what you think you can argue with successfully.
I’d prefer to see you try listening-to-understand, instead of the listening-to-argue that you’ve shown thus far. I don’t expect it’ll happen, but I’d like to see it.
Given his track record, why is Dehlin accorded any treatment as a good-faith actor? I ask this in all sincerity. He clearly has little regard for the Church, gives platforms (and cover) to individuals who seek the destruction of the Church as in this instance, and finds himself on the opposite side of the institutional church at seemigly every turn.
I am just perplexed at how a person who advocates in the manner he does, would want to remain affiliated with the Church. I just don’t get it. Therefore, I’m suspicious of the assumption of good faith accorded him.
Blain,
I’m sorry you have judged me as being disingenuous; I have not been. I have been very straight-forward that I believe the responsibility for personal decisions rests with the person.
(My last comment to you, on the 30th, was sarcastic in nature. One should never confuse sarcasm with insincerity. I was sarcastic—perhaps not the best choice on my part—in reaction to your stereotyping of those who do not agree with your assessment. I hope you can understand that.)
Now, to the point at hand. Any decisions that a person makes are always influenced by others. For instance, if I decide to buy a new car, my decision is influenced by dozens of sources; there is probably no need to name all the possible sources. However, the decision to purchase the car is mine, and mine alone.
So it is in this situation. If you said that the decision for Richard and his first wife to get divorced was influenced by others, I would agree with that. I believe that the decision was influenced by all the people you mentioned, and even many you did not mention (such as family members, Richard’s university buddies, and the books that Richard and his wife chose to read).
But influence does not translate to responsibility; they are not synonymous. Richard and John, in the interview, don’t evidence an understanding of the difference. I suspect (but do not know) that they would agree that Richard’s friends and his reading material influenced his decision, but they specifically say that the Church wasn’t only influential, it was responsible. I disagree with such an assessment.
I am not trying to twist what you are saying. I am taking your words as face value. (And thank you for your last post; I appreciated it.) I understand that you feel the Church, its leaders, and its members bear at least partial responsibility for the breakup of Richard’s first marriage. I disagree, as I’ve stated before, and as I tried to make clearer above. I don’t think that the Church has any more responsibility for the breakup than do Richard’s friends who helped him discover the Church wasn’t true.
Blain, you seem to think that my disagreement means I am “listening to argue” instead of “listening to understand.” This, despite me having—in several comments—specifically pointed out to you that I really do understand what you are saying. Agreement does not necessarily follow from understanding.
I suspect we will have to either chalk our disagreement up to a difference in terminology or simply agree to disagree—I’m fine with either.
-Allen
Intentionally distorting what someone has said is not an act of sincerity or honesty. The sarcastic tone with which it was delivered didn’t help, but wasn’t the primary problem. Intellectual honesty is manifest in acknowledging the validity in your opponents argument, and is not manifest in simply dropping your points which have been discredited in silence. Beyond that, your claim that I was stereotyping people I disagreed with, when I was arguing against a position not yet on the table, is not compatible with your claims that you understand what I’m saying. The difference between a point and the person making it is a subtle one and, perhaps, a slight one, but understanding where I’m coming from and saying requires the ability to notice that difference.
Now, to get more to the meat of our disagreement in principle, you are, as I understand it, disagreeing with any spreading of responsibility for a choice beyond the person who made the choice. This exempts the choice to exercise influence from the choices which bring responsibility. So the parents who try to influence their children to make good choices share no responsibility for the good choices their children make? The Church has earned no responsibility for the good choices made by members who followed the counsel and teaching of the Church? And the choice to influence someone to sin quite egregiously brings no consequential guilt?
In your car purchase analogy, what of a salesman who influences you to purchase a car that’s more expensive than you really need by leading you to believe that one that would be quite adequate but less expensive isn’t safe enough, or isn’t available, so he can benefit from a larger commission? What of the influence of a spouse who indicates that choosing other than she wants will result in some sleeping on a sofa? There are many different kinds and levels of influence that can contribute to choices, and I would hold that the more powerful influences bring a greater accountability than those which are lesser. The influence of the Church in the lives of those who strive to be faithful is profound and significant, and can not be lightly dismissed.
I think you’re misapplying the converse of people trying to excuse their behavior by pointing to those who influenced them to do so. That is, they are saying “I’m not responsible for my choices, because I was just doing what they influenced me to do,” and that, I very much agree with you, is wrong. But my response is “You are responsible for your choice, and they are responsible for their choice to exercise influence over you,” while yours seems to be “you are responsible for your choice, while they have done nothing wrong at all.” With that, I disagree.
Sometimes, perhaps often, our choices bring unintended consequences, and we retain responsibility for those unintended consequences, just as we do for the intended consequences which happen to actually occur (unintended consequences can’t be avoided, while intended consequences are disturbingly more mercurial to achieve). When teachings of the Church lead individuals to believe that their own exaltation is jeopardized by the apostasy of a spouse, those who propagate those teachings have a share in the responsibility for the divorces which result from it. Since such teachings are contrary to solid Church doctrine, that responsibility falls to those who have taught it, rather than to the institutional Church, but the institutional Church does bear some responsibility for having not more clearly taught the correct doctrine that would have avoided the misunderstandings which lead to those divorces.
I would like the Church to step up on this matter. To clarify that divorcing a spouse who remains faithful to marital vows, but who has experienced a loss of testimony, is not required to protect the eternal integrity of the family. Such a clarification, widely enough taught, would have been helpful to Richard’s first family to remain intact at the time when it was torn apart, and keeping his family together at that point might well have helped him get through his loss of testimony without the resentment for the Church which resulted from his divorce. Might he have returned to faithfulness after a time? It’s impossible to know how different things could have been, but it’s an intriguing possibility to consider for those in similar situations today, but whose spouses have not responded to their loss of testimony with separation and divorce. Like those at Faces East. Might they return to the Church someday? Whether they do or not, their children benefit by remaining in intact families, and that’s no minor consideration.
I think this outcome is more likely if people within the Church are aware of the problem and their contribution to it. Giving the Church and its members a pass for that contribution benefits no one.
Blain,
But here, based on what I have read, the husband (Richard) was not faithful to his marriage vows. He violated his marriage vows by abandoning his faith in the Lord, the Lord’s Church, and his priesthood. He might not have slept with another woman, but it seems he did violate his marriage vows. He made choices. In response, his wife made choices. Perhaps both were influenced by cultural considerations, but surely their decisions were their own.
Blain,
For the most part, I don’t agree with ji, but I cannot see how the Church could be at fault for Mr. Packham’s divorce. It’s not as if the Church held a gun to their heads until they divorced! 😉
Look, it’s hard enough to maintain a marriage when you have personalities and interests and culture in common. When you have major differences, it gets that much harder.
With the Packhams you have one person of faith and another outside of it. For one thing, raising children becomes a royal pain as the parents work at cross purposes, and, no doubt, undermine the other in that faith issue. Surely, it would rankle Mr. Packham that his wife teaches her children the values inherent in the Church just as much as it irritates his first wife that he teaches AGAINST those values.
I would submit that while it is possible for parents belonging to separate but similar faith groups to reach a common, middle ground (for example, Baptists and Nazarenes have conservative Christian values common to both), but a common ground between faith and non-faith often proves non-existent. One naturally encroaches upon and usurps the other.
Do I make sense?
Steven — You make sense. And there’s no question that making a mixed-faith marriage work is more difficult than a shared-faith marriage, all other things being equal. I do not recommend them.
But it’s not such a tidy question when the marriage is there, and the faith changes. Not when you love your spouse and your children and you don’t want to break your family up. If there’s a addiction and abuse, then it would seem the marriage is already broken, but what do you do when it’s not?
The problem with what you’re saying, along with ji, is that that marriage should be broken up anyway, because it’s just going to break up anyhow. That idea has all the hallmarks of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and sows doubt deep into the marriage when it’s already in danger. It is an attack on marriages where a spouse has lost faith in the Church, whether it is intended to be or not.
Especially because it isn’t true — not enough to be generalized. Mixed-faith marriages do work, both those started when the faith’s are mixed, and those where there is a change of belief. They are hard, but it is not a lock that they will fail. My Dad didn’t join the Church until my parents had been married more than twenty years, and they remained married until he died a decade later. As I’ve mentioned several times in this thread (wondering if anybody has noticed), there is a website called Faces East (faceseast.org) that is “[d]evoted to the ideal of eternal marriage, even when a spouse does not accept LDS beliefs.” Many people are working at making these kinds of marriages work, and not a few are succeeding.
What you’re demonstrating is an example of what I was talking about in a small way. Just one of the insidious attitudes, with all of the best of intentions, which members of the Church help propagate which erode the structure of marriages that are already struggling. Can you see that? And can you see that there are other attitudes and beliefs, sincerely held, which can also kick a struggling marriage when it’s down? If you can, then that’s all I’m saying — all i’ve ever said about this. These problems don’t cause divorces, but they certainly do contribute to them in a way that I don’t see as necessary.
Nobody could have contributed to Richard’s divorce as much as Richard and his wife. His loss of faith certainly created challenges that weren’t there, and it’s quite possible that the contributions from the Church (members, leaders, etc.) are not the things that pushed things over the edge. There’s no simple way of knowing such things. I think Richard’s resentment of the Church has led him to overemphasize the role it played in his divorce. But we should not let this distortion excuse discounting his point altogether. Not if we care about our brothers and sisters who are struggling with a loss of faith in their families.
Allen,
I know a couple whose marriage is going through turbulence at the moment and separation has intermittently seemed imminent. I find your insights that use a more expanded definition of infidelity highly useful for understanding the stress, hurt, and sense of betrayal. I am trying to be good influence for keeping the marriage together. I baby sit the kids, so the couple can spend more time together to work out issues, go out and have fun, or go to counseling. I do dishes, take out garbages, and do home improvement projects to help the home be a more pleasant environment.
I have been told that if the ultimate decision is to dissolve the marriage, that I should not consider myself responsible; but if it survives that my efforts are making a difference. I think the same thing can be said about the role of the Church in this anecdote. Other church members have likewise made positive contributions in word and deed when they could have justifiably encouraged divorce based on the (on-going?)infidelity. LDS services have made it easy to find a marriage counselor. The couple is also drawing strength directly through principles of the Gospel.
My own actions have been largely based on advice found in various Ensign articles about how to help those going through what this couple is. Likewise your essay and comments have been providential. The Church keeps families together if they so chose and provides all kinds of hope for the ultimate salvation of wayward children and spouses.
Speaking from my own experience, the most awful day of my life was when my return-missionary older brother sent out an email to the family declaring that he was losing his faith because he couldn’t answer some intellectual arguments against the church. It felt like he was intentionally choosing to abandon our family. The emotional blow from such an act* on those who depend on a formerly faithful partner/family member is enormous. It would have hurt less to find out he was dying; at least then I would have the comfort of knowing I’d be with him again after this short life.
Can we please stop trying to find fault with Richard’s wife in a misguided attempt to say that doctrine didn’t contribute to the divorce? Of course we don’t know all the details of their relationship’s failure, but it’s undeniable that faith in the gospel brings with it anguish for believers who see loved ones reject it (see Alma 8:14). It’s fair to implicate the emotional effects of apostasy on a spouse in the weakening of a marital partnership. (Not so fair, though, to ignore that a significant change in worldview and habits by one partner would have a deleterious effect on most marriages, LDS or not.)
* I believe my brother’s loss of faith was an intentional act. After all, that story of angels and gold plates that he taught people before is rather incredible to your average listener. Faith, supplication for knowledge from God, and answers from the Holy Ghost are the source of testimonies, not the unassailable logic and popular appeal of latter-day revelation and prophets. (But carry on, FAIR, in your fine work because it does help!)
Can some one tell me which piece of doctrine causes divorce?
“The Women in Our Lives” Gordon B. Hinckley Nov. 2004 Ensign
Dallin H. Oaks “Divorce” Ensign May 2007
Dallin H. Oaks “Divorce” Ensign May 2007
Boyd K. Packer, “Marriage” May 1981
Gordon B. Hinckley, “What God has joined together” Ensign May 1991
James E. Faust, “The Enriching of Marriage” Nov. 1977
Renon Hulet “Partners in everything but the Church” Tambulli 1989
Blain writes
Although current teachings available on the Church website only cover since 1970, I would certainly argue that the point is frequently made that one’s eternal family security is not in jeopardy as long as that person is faithful to his/her covenants (including doing their best to preserve their marriage) regardless of what decisions the wayward spouse make. That basic sentiment has been part of Church doctrine been around since August 13, 1843 (see: http://www.millennialstar.org/the-most-comforting-doctrine/ )
The only cultural meme I recall seeing articulated above– the idea that a spouse is better off divorcing a non-member (to generalize the apostatizing spouse scenario)–is acknowledged in my last citation. However, it is not approved of. Instead there is counsel to negotiate with the spouse on religious matters and to have hope and patience. The article treats spouses trying to manipulate their partner into the Church as inappropriate.
So should the Church institutionally be held responsible for cultural memes, folk doctrine, and the behavior of its members that is against its clear teachings?
Anon — I’m pretty much done here. It gets tiresome when people are trying so hard not to get a point, and I have other places to spend my time. Feel free to argue with my shadow as much as you want — I won’t be back to this thread.
Your point about infidelity is valid. I wonder, however, how hard members in this situation, where one partner loses a shared belief, really look at the marriage itself as something sacred that needs to be fought for in the face of this kind of strain. The sacredness of marriage is central to our belief and something the spouses still hold in common in situations like the podcast.
That said, the bottom line is that the situation is just hard. People can play woulda coulda shoulda all they want and worse, blame the church, but it isn’t going to change the fact that this is a hard situation all around.
Blain,
I only quoted part of your comment because it brought up an interesting point about what the Church can and perhaps should do to prevent more divorces in cases where a spouse apostatizes. I thought you might find it encouraging (assuming your critique is meant to be constructive) that the Church actually has done what you think proper. What you do with that information is up to you, but I am more concerned about educating readers who might find the information and perspective I provide useful.
I think it would be interesting to compare statistically whether LDS are more or less likely to divorce their spouse if he or she converts to another faith or atheism than other demographic factors. Those stats could be compared to prior studies that look at religiously mismatched couples at the beginning of the marriage. Maybe I take a trip to the library…
I think we all need to consider a few things:
Nobody’s perfect. Attendance at a church indicates a striving toward God, not (even temporary) perfection. Church doesn’t require us to pretend. Our own pride does that.
My spouse would have a huge problem with my leaving her and the kids to attend parties and other events which detracted from our focus on our relationship and children. So would I.
Wouldn’t you? What other promises am I violating if I’m showing such a dramatic change in focus and behavior?
Marriages are based on many explicit and implicit agreements. Shared values, assumptions of how we’ll spend our time included, are important to them. I’d be heartbroken if my spouse decided to disbelieve. But what would break the marriage would be: changed focus away from the family, large time blocks spent away from the family, infidelity, a perception that my spouse was seeking another primary relationship…
This story has many non-religious dimensions just as important to the outcome.
Blain:
My apologies for tardiness; my father (lung cancer) and wife (low haemoglobin count) and I (asthma and sleep apnea) have all had illnesses to contend with–some at the hospital.
You say:
If a man parties outside of the home to the wee hours in the morning, while the wife and children are at home, I’d say that he is–at least mildly–abusing and neglecting his family. Let us grant that this neglect and abuse is unintentional, but it is there, nevertheless.
Actually, I’m not saying that.
Marriage is an institution of faith, and, when one spouse loses that faith, the marriage is in jeopardy–as you correctly point out.
And it is the spouse that loses the faith that puts the marriage in jeopardy.
You’re right; mixed-faith marriages can work–but both parties must put forth effort–much more than is needed to nourish a single-faith marriage.
Sadly, while it is unclear whether Sister Packham was willing to put forth that effort, it is evident that Mr. Packham was not.
In any event, it is not the Church’s fault. It is Church policy to attempt to preserve the marriage.
And how did the Church contribute to the Packhams’ divorce? By helping Sister Packham maintain her faith?
Let me remind you that it was Rchard Packham that engaged in behaviour that systematically undermined the values that Sister Packham held dear (and was trying to instill in her children!)–and formed an essential part of her character and personality.
Forgive me, but surrendering her personhood is a bit much to ask of Sister Packham to save her marriage!
Then why blame the Church for decisions made by Mr. Packham? And why blame the first wife when Mr. Packham’s behaviour undermined the values that formed her person–and starved their marriage of the attention it needs–even more so, since their faiths are now at odds?