Choosing the Freedom to Choose

I still have my original missionary badge!

When I attended the ALL (Arizona LDS LGBT) conference this past April, I was privileged to be on a panel of six or so individuals to answer some questions fielded from a moderator before lunch. It was about an hour long, though I must say I could've talked for hours. It was so much fun and exciting to talk directly to people, more or less, and answer their questions. The Ally Nights we've had in the past in my Tucson group are similar: that is, we would allow others to ask us questions, and we would share our thoughts and stories as LGBT members.

Anyway, one question asked was something like, "Should I continue to encourage my child [presumably LGBT] to go on a mission for the church?"

This has been a tough thing for me to answer in the past, because my feelings about the mission are complex. On the one hand, I have a foundation of belief in the core tenets of the gospel that were formed from the spiritual experiences I believe I had while serving in Chile ("¡CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE! ¡VIVA CHILE!"). So. On the one hand, my mission was great and very important. But there was a dark side, and I really hated it:

The pressure

Our general church leaders constantly warn against succumbing to peer pressure, but rarely, I think, do they realize that a culture of ecclesiastical pressure has become so ingrained into our church that we ourselves aren't even aware when we're perpetuating it. But it is definitely felt. I felt it, and it felt embarrassing, unbecoming, unrighteous, and self-deprecating to even bring it up to family members and friends, let alone Priesthood leaders. The concept of not going on a mission was just not even given serious thought.

A friend recently posted this article from FeministMormonHousewives. Check it out. It's all about this subject. But I'd like to take it a step further. A Priesthood leader in the narrative asks the young men to raise their hand if they were planning to go on a mission. All except one did, to which resistant youth he remarked that refusing to go meant "You're on Satan's side."

A terrible thing to say, to be sure. But I don't want to repeat what the article says. I'd like to focus on something else. I've thought about how the pressure affected my desire to go. I'll be honest, I probably didn't want to go. But as a BYU student and lifelong member of the church, it felt like I had to go. I didn't really have a choice. And it loomed in my near future as my teenage years waned.

Finally, maybe six months before I left, I said to myself, "Okay Sam, well you're going. So you might as well just buck up." And I did. I studied the scriptures and Preach My Gospel, bought all my clothes from my call center job, and went; and I learned a great many things; and taught many wonderful people; and overall would say I walked away with, as I mentioned previously, an important foundation of the gospel.

Some would say, then, that although the pressure is irritating, it is nonetheless worth it, because, hey, look at the fruits of the pressure: now I have a testimony. Boom. Case closed.

But again. I didn't feel like I had a choice. Whatever pitiful thing you would like to say about, "Oh of course you had a choice, we all have a choice," I am telling you it did not feel like there was a choice. And I guarantee you I am NOT the only one who has felt this way. And when there is NOT a choice, in other words, when there is no agency, and when we are the ones perpetuating a culture of no agency, I believe we are supporting and even encouraging Satan's plan.

Yes, those are strong words. But I fully believe them. Shame, self-doubt, frustration, sadness, and depression should NOT be the methods by which we "encourage" ANYONE to leave on a mission, regardless of the reward they receive at the end. If "the ends" of the mission justified "the means" of getting prospective Elders out there, well, then, we can say the same about the War in Heaven. I mean, after all, we would've all returned to God's presence if we had followed Satan's plan, right? Seems like a pretty good deal, right? All the pain and frustration and anguish of not having a choice is totally worth it, since we'll be back in heaven, right?

Wrong. That's not the point. The point is that we don't become "slothful servants" because we were compelled, but rather that we are "anxiously engaged" in a good cause (D&C 58:26-28) because we actually want to. I was not anxiously engaged. I was engaged, technically speaking. Anxiously, though? Eh, not so much. Kinda went through the motions.

I find it sadly ironic that the Priesthood leader in the linked article says the youth was "obviously" on "Satan's side" for choosing to not go on a mission, when in fact, his attempt at removing the youth's choice by shaming him into compliance was far closer to the Adversary's explicitly stated antemortal plan.

Perhaps the effects of these unperceived reflections of Satan's plan also, in turn, go unperceived. Perhaps the only effect...is nothing; our church's growth stagnates. Growth rate doesn't improve (the data in the article linked below show this). Maybe Zion doesn't collectively grow spiritually. It simply...sits there...but continues to perpetuate cultural norms over generations that harden to quasi-Pharisaical "requirements" for salvation.

You want some data? Here you go. The graphs in the article show that our missionary force has obviously grown huge in the past few years, thanks to the lowering of the missionary age. The number of convert baptisms, however? Minimal increase. This led to a pronounced drop in converts per missionary. So while the huge increase in missionary numbers makes us feel good on paper ("Omg, there's 75,000 missionaries; the church is like, so true, righhhht?"), the reality is that quantity is not so powerful a converting factor as quality. And when I refer to quality missionaries, I refer to those that had the true, honest to Lordy Jesus Almighty intrinsic desire (e.g. an actual testimony) to actually go on a mission. Not those that were simply "compelled" to go for whatever reason.



After the ALL conference panel, I was talking to Christian Frandsen, a fine fellow. He said he loved everything about the panel except the section about the mission. He said basically that the constant "encouragement" to go that was expressed in the panel can be triggering for people, particularly LGBT LDS youth that are struggling with whether to go or not. Although I had mentioned in the panel my own internal conflict about church pressure vs the testimony I gained, and how I'm not sure how to encourage youth to go or whether I even should; although I had mentioned all this, it was evident my stance wasn't clear or direct enough to come across to Christian; and by extension, the message may be lost to struggling youth. I was sitting on the fence. The scriptures call this being "lukewarm," and now I understand why we are "spewed forth" for being such: it helps no one, and ultimately achieves nothing. Some may say it helps degeneracy to thrive. Therefore, I realized that I could no longer be a proponent for a culture that, however subtly, promotes Adversarial end goals by employing his tactics of eternal "guarantees" of salvation. So, "get thee behind me, Satan."

If you're a youth struggling about whether to go on a mission: ask yourself, "Do I feel pressured to go?" If so, don't go. And be okay and confident with yourself in refusing to go while you feel the only thing motivating you to go is church pressure.

Choose the freedom to choose.