As I was scrolling through Bluesky this afternoon, I learned that yesterday was World Mental Health Day. And learning that helped my crystalize some thoughts I had about one paragraph of Pres. Nelson’s talk from General Conference.
And this is important: I have a substantive objection to it. It’s not an aesthetic one (though I also have aesthetic objections to the cutesy catchphrases that seem to be popping up more and more). And it’s not condemnatory. In fact, I’m trying to approach it with charity and empathy.
But even with charity and empathy, it’s a conversation that I believe is important, and it’s a conversation that I believe Pres. Nelson mishandled.
And I think I understand (some of, at least) why he mishandled it, which is why I’m trying to be charitable here. Part of it is, he’s in pain. He said that in his talk—he injured his back. And, while I’m not 99, I’ve also, on occasion, injured myself. And to be blunt: pain hurts. It physically hurts, but it also hurts our ability to be kind. I’ve said and done things that I regret when in pain.
Should he be better than that? No. That’s the cool thing about our view of prophets: they’re humans, subject to the same sensations and experiences as the rest of us. They’re not superhuman, they haven’t risen above the travails and concerns of mortality. They see through the same glass, darkly, as the rest of us.
Which means we need to be able to grant them charity. But we also need to recognize where they’re wrong, or where their rhetoric could cause harm. And one paragraph particularly of his talk, I believe, has the potential to cause significant harm. And it’s this one:
“As you think celestial, you will find yourself avoiding anything that robs you of your agency. Any addiction—be it gaming, gambling, debt, drugs, alcohol, anger, pornography, sex, or even food—offends God. Why? Because your obsession becomes your god. You look to it rather than to Him for solace. If you struggle with an addiction, seek the spiritual and professional help you need. Please do not let an obsession rob you of your freedom to follow God’s fabulous plan.”
And I’m going to raise one micro (but important!) problem with this and one macro (and also important!) problem. The micro first:
I don’t understand why he listed food as an addiction here. Yes, WebMD reports that there may be such a thing as food addiction. And maybe there is. But there’s no maybe about the fact that there is such a thing as disordered eating. In fact, according to research published in JAMA, by age 40, about one in seven males and one in five females will have experienced an eating disorder. Are Mormons particularly susceptible to eating disorders? Honestly, I don’t see any reason to think we are. But I also don’t see any reason to believe that eating disorders are less prevalent among us than among the broader society.
And clearly, Pres. Nelson wasn’t thinking about eating disorders as he throw in “or even food” as the tag of his addictive list. But disordered eating involves one’s brain telling them lies. And it’s easy enough to see how that lying brain could leap from “too much food is an addiction” to “God wants me to eat less.”
That’s not a rational leap. And I’m not saying it’s a rational leap. But it’s an understandable leap, especially in the throes of a disease that has your brain lying to you.
Honestly, I suspect you have similar potential results from the prophet calling out other addictive behaviors too. Because it turns out that many of these things aren’t deliberate choices people make; they derive from our bodies or brains, already in a fallen and imperfect world, lying to us. (I’ll note that I didn’t notice “debt” in that list until just now; if I had, that may have been the direction I went, but I’m going to leave it for today.)
Which takes us to my macro point: I don’t believe, for a single second, that our suffering from addiction offends God. And this is where I suspect back pain had something to do with word choice.
But addiction is part of the fallen and imperfect world that we live in. And not only that we live in—that we chose to live in. At God’s behest. This is His plan.
I don’t think that means that God wants us to be stuck in self-destructive behavior. I don’t believe that He rejoices when we suffer from addiction, when debt limits our choices, when we’re angry. But I don’t believe either that He’s offended.
Rather, I believe that our pain and frailties make God sad. He is, according to Terryl and Fiona Givens, the God who weeps. He is, we believe, our loving Father, who sent Jesus to earth to atone for us.
And I think that’s a critical thing to keep in mind. A God who gets offended at the weaknesses and failures of His children, when he specifically designed a world where we would be weak and fail, is not a perfect loving God.
And I would be surprised if Pres. Nelson didn’t agree with that. I’d be surprised if, had the fog of pain been lifted, he would have used the same word choice. So let me rewrite that paragraph in a way that I think better reflects what Pres. Nelson meant to say, and better represents the God my Mormonism has taught me to believe in (and I’m going to keep his “think celestial” even though it really rubs me the wrong way):
“As you think celestial, you will find yourself trying to avoid anything that robs you of your agency. Any addiction saddens God. Why? Because your obsession and self-harming behavior hurts you. His plan allows for us to make mistakes, and make wrong choices. But He wants you to turn to Him for solace. That’s why he sent Jesus to earth to atone for us. If you struggle with an addiction, seek the spiritual and professional help you need. Please do not let fear that you might disappoint your Heavenly Father rob you of your freedom to follow God’s fabulous plan.”