Over at Wheat & Tares, a number of bloggers have written takes on what they’re calling “Middle Way Mormonism.”[fn1] Although their takes differ marginally from one another, they’re all fairly complementary. And by and large, I think they represent an interesting, and important, take on Mormonism, and one that I want to engage with.
Though they don’t lay out a precise definition of Middle Way Mormonism, the contours seem to be something like this: a Middle Way Mormon is a member who recognizes fallibility and institutional weakness in the church, but stays in the church. And, if that’s roughly what they’re talking about, I’m clearly a Middle Way Mormon. (Also, so are you. And so it your rabid Mormon uncle, with the anti-government takes and the bunker filled with MREs. More on that in a minute.)
The W&T bloggers largely see (in their experience and the experiences of their loved ones) Middle Way Mormonism being triggered by some traumatic episode—a discovery about something in church history or practice, something that brings with it pain and disillusionment. That traumatic episode leads, almost inevitably, to a changed relationship to the church. That changed relationship may result in an temporary or permanent equilibrium, but that equilibrium risks being difficult and uncomfortable to maintain. (FWIW, these are all my words and takes on their excellent posts, and I hope the W&T bloggers will forgive me if I’ve flattened some of the nuance, or misinterpreted some of the assertions, in their posts.)
Kristine and Andrew expressly recognize that not everybody moves to Middle Way Mormonism as a result of trauma; Andrew says that he has
met several folks who grew up reading Sunstone and Dialogue and so their belief was already informed by the warts and messiness of history and theology — they didn’t have a “traumatized believer” stage because there was no surprise.
Personally, I fit comfortably into the non-traumatized believer mold here. (A quick interjection: what follows isn’t meant to be normative. I’m not suggesting that mine is the only—or even the best—way of approaching Mormonism, only that it’s mine.) But it’s not the result of growing up with Sunstone and Dialogue and academic Mormonism. Frankly, I grew up reading Transcendentalists and Existentialists, and Heller and especially Vonnegut. Church was somewhere I went on Sundays and often weekday mornings, but the Mormonism I experienced didn’t strike me as having the depth or importance to warrant real intellectual engagement.[fn2]
I didn’t grow up knowing that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Or about the Salamander letter. Or multiple versions of the First Vision or seer stones or post-Manifesto polygamy. But I also don’t remember when I learned that stuff.[fn3] It clearly didn’t traumatize me.
And partly, I got lucky in when I grew up. In the early 90s, the church (at least, where I lived and where I experienced it) wasn’t making stark political statements. I mean, yeah, we didn’t like abortion, but we weren’t the ones in front of the clinic with angry faces waving signs. And I’m sure the 90s Southern California church wasn’t a welcoming place to the LGBTQ community. But I also don’t remember ever hearing anything (positive or negative) about LGBTQ individuals at church. And yeah, women’s roles were severely constrained, but the whole ERA thing had happened more than a decade earlier. So, while I didn’t think the church warranted my intellectual engagement, it was a comfortable place to be, and I had time to grow into my engagement with it.
And that engagement led to Middle Way Mormonism for me. But here’s the thing: we’re all Middle Way Mormons.[fn4] Or, at least, the vast majority of us are. Some have undoubtedly made a clean break from the church, and there may be some active members who accept, uncritically, everything that the church and its leaders do and say, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff. But most people are somewhere in the middle, even if they don’t recognize themselves in that middle. (It’s kind of like tithing—for all the talk of paying on net vs. paying on gross, we all pay on one net or another.)
It’s important, I believe, that we recognize the expanded Middle. Why? I think one problem that many people who recognize that they’re living in the Middle Way have is that they feel lonely.[fn6] But once we recognize that we’re all living in Middle Way Mormonism, maybe we can be more empathetic toward, and accepting of, people whose Middle Way is different from ours.
But, of course, if we all recognize that the church is flawed (perhaps fatally, hopefully not irredeemably), why stay at all? I can’t speak for you, of course, but I’m an institutionalist. I believe in the importance and power of institutions to make life better, for me, but more importantly, for others. I also recognize that every institution has flaws, and most have real, and significant, flaws.[fn7]
Still, I’m a progressive. I believe Dr. King that the arc of the moral universe bends (eventually) toward justice. And I believe that an institution has more power to bend it than I do individually. And I also believe that, as a member of the church, I have the ability to incrementally help it bend that way. Perhaps not noticeably, and not in a way that will be cited in a 2118 history of the church. I may have an ego, but I’m also a realist.
But I believe in the power of ideas. And I believe that, by espousing and living my ideals, I can put those ideas into circulation (whether on blogs or in Sunday School classes or anywhere else), and those ideas, in turn, may eventually become part of the fabric of ideas that will underlie future decisions. And as my ideas (and your ideas, and everybody else’s Middle Way ideas) enter into the common lexicon of Mormonism, they will eventually help to bend the moral universe of the church toward justice.[fn8]
Does it have to be Mormonism? Of course not; there are countless imperfect institutions and individuals working to ensure that the universe bends the right way. But here’s the thing: each one of those institutions and individuals is flawed, each one fatally (though, again, hopefully not irredeemably). Each of us muddles in the middle in everything we do. That doesn’t mean to stay uncritically in any institution we happen to be part of. Some institutions’ flaws are both fatal and irredeemable, and some institutions work to bend the moral arc of the universe away from justice. And it’s important that we learn to discern when an institution is irredeemable or unjust, and that we learn what we should do in those circumstances.
But irrespective of what institutions we’re part of, we’re going to be in a tenuous middle equilibrium. And we’ll have to learn to muddle through that middle.
[fn1] You can read Happy Hubby’s post here, Kristine A’s here, Andrew S.’s here, and Cody Hatch’s here. And, after I drafted this post, Andrew wrote a new post with some additional thoughts. They’re worth reading, too, but I didn’t have time here to engage with what he added.
[fn2] Again, not normative. I disagree with teenage-me, but teenage-me didn’t have access to the libraries, books, and background that today-me does.
[fn3] If I had to guess, maybe high school? Some in college? Maybe I didn’t learn some until law school? I really don’t know.
[fn4] (Okay, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. Most people aren’t Mormons of any sort, either TB or Middle Way or ex-. At 16 million members or so,[fn5] we make up 0.2% of the world’s population; the other 99.8% are not any kind of Mormon.)
[fn5] Yeah, not all of those 16 million would identify as Mormon, but for purposes of this particular calculation, I don’t care.
[fn6] I really wanted a GIF of INXS singing “Need You Tonight” subtitled with “I’m lonely” here, but this was the best I could do, so you’ll have to subtitle it with your imagination.
[fn7] And when I say I’m an institutionalist, I don’t just mean with respect to the church. I’m a big fan of the U.S. judicial system, of universities, and, frankly, of democracy in general. Yes, our current politics are fatally (though, again, I hope not irredeemably) flawed, but I believe and hope that those flaws will be corrected. And speaking of correcting the flaws in democracy: if you’re reading this the day I posted it, it’s election day! If you’ve voted, awesome! And if not, why are you reading my post right now? It’s time to vote!
[fn8] And what if they don’t slide into the accepted discourse? Such is life. Kristine and Andrew wrote about how Middle Way Mormonism is probably unsustainable when members stay in the church with the expectation that they’ll change it. And I think that’s absolutely right. The change I’m talking about is more quixotic: it’s the same kind of change I expect to effect as a tax academic. I’d be surprised (happy, but surprised) if a legislature adopted my ideas directly, and credited me. I mean, they certainly could, but it’s probably unlikely. OTOH, I teach a lot of students. And I publish in a lot of law reviews, and my articles are edited by students and read by a number of people. And those students, and those other readers, will become lawyers and legislators, and what I teach and write will be part of their intellectual makeup. And maybe, imperceptibly and eventually, my concerns could inform their decisions down the line. It’s not a simple and obvious causal connection, but it may be a connection nonetheless.