True to sacrament meeting procedure, I will begin by defining indoctrination. Most definitions basically say that indoctrination is to teach something so that people will think uncritically about it. Wikipedia's definition is as follows: "Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology. It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned."
Indoctrination has a lot of negative connotations, and not without reason. To be indoctrinated means to disregard any criticism and accept something not based on actual evidence, but simply because you want to, which as most people understand, is no grounds for knowledge.
I would like to clarify that I am not saying that the church leadership intentionally indoctrinates its members, though some people would certainly say so. I believe that religion evolves, and for the most part all religions indoctrinate their congregations (to a certain degree) in order to survive. When beliefs are only founded on the willingness to believe them, it is detrimental to those beliefs to consider alternatives.
I would also like to point out that not all Mormons are indoctrinated. There are people out there who have critically looked at the church and determined that it is the best option for them. These people, though perhaps the most faithful, are often looked down upon or even ostracized by the Mormon community or leadership. One such instance is Kate Kelly, who was excommunicated because she continually criticized and spoke out against the oppressive patriarchy of the church. Although she is technically not a mormon anymore, she wants to be, even though she recognizes that the Mormon church is imperfect.
I would now like to discuss the reason I find the Mormon church to be a system of indoctrination. In order to do so, I will be drawing heavily from my experience, and by drawing parallels between other systems of indoctrination. I will be drawing these parallels, not to equate the systems, but to provide examples of indoctrination strategies that will hopefully illustrate how the church keeps its people from true knowledge.
One foundational principle of the Mormon church is that it has a modern day prophet. Mormons have songs, scriptures, and talks that all emphasize the importance of “following the prophet”. This differs from other christian churches who don’t believe that we need modern day prophets. According to mormon teachings, the Prophet will guide and direct the church. Essentially, he speaks for God. He receives revelation, and then communicates this revelation to the church. As this LDS site points out, the prophet will “never lead the church astray”. My understanding of this is that he will never take the church in the wrong direction, and will never proclaim false teachings. Basically, the prophet is never wrong. Never mind that countless prophetic teaching have been revoked, such as Brigham Young’s “Adam-God Doctrine”. According to Mormon teachings, if you disagree with the prophet, you are wrong. The prophet is revered by most within the Mormon church, indeed, among mormon circles he is seen much like a celebrity.
This “follow the leader” thinking can be found throughout history. Those in power want to stay in power. If the peoples are following the leader, then they are also not rebelling. In many past societies, criticizing kings, and dictators would usually result in a death sentence. One of the things that makes democracy so great, is that people can (theoretically) criticize a politician and his decisions. It is in oppressive, dictatorial regimes that we find people faithfully devoted to the “one true leader”. This is not to say that the prophet does not speak for god. I will not try to dispute that here. What I am saying, is that entities which seek to control its peoples often use a central figure (i.e. the Prophet) to create a sense of devotion and unbending faith amongst its peoples.
Some point out that “We’re not blindly following the prophet. We pray to god to know if he is the correct leader of his church.” This is faulty thinking. Church members will always sustain whoever is put into office, because if you disagree, you’re essentially disagreeing with god. Mormons raise their hands to sustain someone to a position in the church, to supposedly show your support. But if you don’t, people look down on you. You are suddenly a weirdy, who, for whatever reason, is not faithful. Nobody actually disagrees with what the prophet says, because in doing so you disagree with god.
Another strategy that indoctrinizers (I just made up that word) use is propaganda. Two components of propaganda are the use of one-sided, publicised material, and the eradication of opposing voices. These two components are heavily present in the Mormon church. For instance, to be an active member in the church you must go to church every week, participate in meetings throughout the week, have family home evening every monday, go to the temple, watch general conference, attend ward functions, as well as study the scriptures and pray daily. The constant bombardment of church teachings has a heavy influence on the brain, and doesn’t allow for much contradiction.
Another example of the church’s use of propaganda is the attempted elimination of non church approved sources of information. Lessons taught in sunday school, talks given over the pulpit, and general authorities often warn against reading or viewing material contrary to mormon beliefs. This is not without reason. People who leave the church often do so because they find information about the Mormon church that is less than pleasing. Many who encounter these sources of information feel betrayed by the Mormon church, leading them to discredit anything else the church teaches or says. It is natural then that the church would want to teach its members to avoid these sources of information. Of course, the church would never (nor be expect to) publish material that contradicts its teachings; but trying to push out opposing voices signals to me that they don’t want people to do actual research or investigation, out of fear that people might learn truths not taught within the walls of the local church buildings.
If members of the church begin to publicly criticize it, they are frequently disfellowshipped or excommunicated. As I pointed out earlier, the church excommunicated Kate Kelly earlier this year. This excommunication signals to other critics that speaking out will not be tolerated. Kate Kelly was not proposing radical ideas, nor was she physically attacking the church. She was simply making her opinion known, and she was excommunicated as a result. This is not unlike political regimes in WWII, which would remove dissenting voices from the population. John Dehlin, a prominent gay-rights advocate was also excommunicated this year, though he was in stronger opposition to the church. In September of 1993, the church excommunicated six individuals who openly opposed some church teachings, giving factual evidence to support their reasoning. They have come to be called the September Six. This signaled to most people that the church was attempting to repress intellectuals who had evidence that pointed out flaws in the church or church system. I can’t personally speak to this, as I don’t have much knowledge on the subject. What I do know, however, is that excommunication is a silencing tool; it’s used to discredit people who speak out and cause them a great deal of stress, as being excommunicated has serious implications for family and social relationships.
I was always taught that it was okay to have questions, but never to doubt. When I had questions, I was to seek church approved answers, of which there are few. Only scriptures and current church publications were to be consulted. I talked about the trouble with this thinking in my first post, but I will reiterate it here. You cannot base the truthfulness, or accuracy of something on the thing itself, or a feeling you get. If you only read the scriptures and church talks for knowledge, of course you will believe in it. This is not to say that these are not legitimate sources of knowledge, but rather to say that only consulting these sources is much like only reading “toyota approved” literature when buying a car; it may have many truths, but is definitely one-sided.
If you have doubts, you are taught to push them aside, and to not think about them. Some call this faith. I call it willful ignorance. Faith is about trusting in god, regardless of anything you have read or heard about him. It is looking at all the facts, and determining that you want to put your trust in him. Faith is not believing in god simply because that’s all you’ve ever considered.
The church puts forth a false version of history. I’ll get into this latter on in my blog, but it is pretty evident that what we’re taught in primary and other church meetings are far from the actual truth. The church has actually recently released some essays in an attempt to come to terms with its controversial history (they, for example, admit that Joseph Smith was a polygamist). You can read one of the essays here. This is all very well, but until the church stops revering Joseph Smith as nearly second to Christ, church members will continue to not think critically about its history. Some mormons I know easily dismiss any allegations brought up about church history, without really considering the facts. This is a blatant result of indoctrination.
Perhaps the most indoctrinat-y thing the church does is to teach children the gospel as fact, and without fault. Shortly after you’re born into a mormon family, you are blessed in the church. You attend primary every week where you’re taught the Book of Mormon as if it is undisputed history. It baffled me as a kid that everyone wasn’t mormon, because in my mind it was the only thing to be. At the age of 8, you choose to formally join the church even though you don’t know there is another option, and are considered incapable of making most other life decisions at this age. Furthermore, if you chose to not be baptized you would be met with criticism, intervention, or at least an overall pressure to be baptized. Even as a kid I felt that there was something strange about this. When I was baptized, I had no real conception of what that commitment entailed. I did it because everyone did it, because you were praised for your “choice”, and because there was usually food afterward.
When you turn 12, there are youth activities every week, which serve to further fortify your religious convictions, and social network. At 14, you have to go to seminary every school day, and learn about the gospel. When you turn 18 or 19, you can (and often do) serve a mission soon after. Two years spent doing nothing but learning gospel principles and studying the scriptures is sure to indoctrinate people further. The church constantly consumes your time. Everything you do comes back to the church, and it is a system like this that signals to me a desire to convince people to not think “critically” about the church.
Again, I don’t think many of these things are intentional. I hardly think the general authorities sit around deviously planning how to indoctrinate its members. What I am arguing is that it happens, whether intentional or not, and that it leads to members who are not truly faithful, but are instead ignorantly believing and blindly devoted. If your faith is really strong, you should be able to accept god, in spite of having accepted the arguments presented against him, not out of ignorance.
As I said before, not all mormons are indoctrinated, or have since overcome their indoctrination. I, myself, was indoctrinated and am still trying to weed out the mormon roots in from my mind. For example, sometimes when confronted with a difficult situation I have the urge to pray or to fast. While some may say that this is the spirit talking, I think it is a result of having been taught to do so for my entire life, mostly through example. Because this is how I approached problems in the past, it is how I react to a problem immediately. But then I remember that god never answered my prayers, and I could never fast very well. It is me who has overcome my problems and difficulties, not god. And I think it is inappropriate to credit God with all the scientific discoveries and progress we’ve made in every field. Man has brought about these miraculous findings, cures, technology, and ideologies (like democracy), and it demeans those achievements when we attribute them to God.
To conclude this abnormally long blog post, I will tell all you mormons that it is not too late to escape indoctrination. You don’t even have to leave the church to do so. It is a problem that can be addressed, even within the confines of the church. Johanna Brooks, my favorite sunday school teacher is a mormon feminist who wrote about the Kate Kelly incident in her blog askamormongirl.com. She said:
“We hoped this day would not come. Because we know that excommunication courts are a nineteenth-century Mormon solution to twenty-first century Mormon problems. Exiling and shaming a dozen, two dozen, one hundred, one thousand heterodox Mormons won’t close the book on women’s issues, or LGBT issues, or historical controversies in Mormonism. You could rid the church of an entire generation of querulous bloggers and grassroots organizers and another will rise and take its place. Because these controversies are not private and individual. They are not personal problems. They are the product of Mormon history, Mormon doctrine, and Mormon culture. We didn’t invent them. We inherited them, as will the generations to follow, each taking its turn in the search for truth. Because that is what Mormonism means.
It is this view that mormons must take. Confront problems, instead of pushing them aside as they have done so for decades. In a an age of internet and extensive communication they cannot continue to be willfully ignorant.
Thanks to yall for reading this terribly long, unorganized, flawed, grammatically incorrect blog. I hope what I’ve said has helped at least one of you.
Joshua Read
COMING SOON: THE MORMON TRAP - WHY IT'S SO HARD TO LEAVE
I guess my indoctrination failed. I'm reading your blog instead of officially approved sources. But then I was always taught, and the D&C even advises us to seek truth wherever it can be found.
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