The threat of excommunication and the future of progress

Yesterday the New York Times reported that LDS feminist agitator Kate Kelly and heterodox activist John Dehlin have received notice that they are being summoned for disciplinary councils. This announcement came as a shock to many heterodox Mormons, including the growing ranks of feminists– several hundred of whom recently came out in support of women’s ordination.

In Mormonism, disciplinary councils are meetings between a member and her local leaders; they are rather rare, reserved for cases of serious personal sins (think non-repentant adultery, illegal activity, abortion, or gender reassignment surgery) and for apostasy.  According to the Church Handbook of Instructions given to local leaders, disciplinary councils are mandatory in cases of apostasy, defined as a member who “repeatedly act[s] in clear, open, and deliberate public opposition to the Church or its leaders” and/or “persist[s] in teaching as Church doctrine information that is not Church doctrine after they have been corrected by their bishop or a higher authority” (along with following the teachings of apostate sects or formally joining another church).

Councils often end in disciplinary action such as probation, disfellowshipment (exclusion from certain rituals, but still considered a member) and excommunication. While any disciplined Mormon can eventually regain full fellowship by submitting to a lengthy repentance process, excommunication voids all connections between the individual and her church. Membership, baptism, sealings to spouse and family, and the hope of attaining the Celestial Kingdom, where Mormons believe they can not only dwell with God but eventually become like Him.

Thus facing a disciplinary council, a Mormon faces eternal banishment. And for what?

In the case of Kelly and presumably Dehlin, at issue is not, for instance, their heterodox beliefs in female ordination or gay marriage or (in Dehlin’s case) doubting the Church’s truth claims. Indeed, Kate Kelly’s letter made clear,  she is “not required to change your thinking or the questions you may have in your own mind.” Instead, as a Mormon apologist once said to me, “You can believe anything you want and be a Mormon. You just can’t teach it as doctrine.” Crossing the line into public communication and endorsement of heterodoxy, by actively calling for change they challenged the view of the LDS bureaucracy as solely, divinely directed through modern-day prophets.

But many onlookers were still blindsided by the threat of excommunication. In the last few years the LDS Church has made many small steps toward the equality and openness that Kelly and Dehlin call for, such as lowering the missionary age for women, allowing a woman to pray in General Conference, reconsidering the stance that homosexuality is a choice, calling for inclusion and love toward homosexuals, and publishing in-depth, official accounts of the hard history of Mormonism.

Building on classic Durkheimian theories, my mentor and friend Carolyn Marvin has famously argued in her book “Blood Sacrifice and the Nation” that nationalism is the American civic religion. To put it in general terms, true patriots must be willing to die for the group’s shared values, and periodically the authority of the nation-community — the totem– must slay a sacrificial lamb to reinforce who we are and what we stand for.  Precipitating the sacrifice is always uncertainty about the group’s essential borders and boundaries. By sacrificing one of its own, the group reinforces its borders.

It is easy to see the parallels with what is happening in Mormonism. Retrench, regroup, and slay two high-profile activists to remind the group who they are, who they answer to, and what the consequences are for violating the sacred covenant. It is a ritual of sacrifice and regeneration.  But the ritual of excommunication– the Mormon blood sacrifice– has another agenda: it provides a distraction from the changes and progress happening in the Church.  I contend that more small steps for equality and openness are on the horizon for the LDS Church, regardless of the outcome of June’s disciplinary councils.