If you’re an active, faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are content with your membership in the Church, are happy to sustain Church leaders, willingly keep your covenants, and aren’t on a feminist crusade to tear down the patriarchy at any cost, then Kate Kelly has a message for you.
Sadly, the Mormon faith has become a place that incentivizes the survival of the least fit. Since strict obedience is demanded and harshly enforced, only the least talented, least articulate, least nuanced thinkers, least likely to take a stand against abuse, and the least courageous people thrive in the Church today.
Yes, you read that correctly. If you’re an active member who hasn’t hitched your wagon to Kelly’s Ordain Women movement, or if you’re otherwise not some kind of dissident, you’re untalented, inarticulate, unnuanced, and complicit in (the patriarchy’s?) unspeakable abuses.
Oh, and if you’re not actively “seek[ing] change,” you don’t have a conscience.
Mormon congregants of conscience will continue to ask bold questions and seek change – and it’s up the the Church, like any good shepherd, to respond to the needs of its modern flock.
You’re also “small-minded,” by the way, if you don’t “accept” dissenters.
The enemy is a world and paradigm too small-minded to accept the dissenters and outcasts that Christ himself would have ministered to and included.
What does that even mean? Seriously. “Accept” dissenters? How? Treat them like human beings? Show them basic courtesy? (Something Kelly evidently isn’t willing to do for those who dissent from her views.) Okay, sure. But is that it? What else? Let them vocally criticize the Church, belittle the Brethren, mislead members with false doctrine, and the like, with no repercussion? Let them, say, accuse President Monson of being a fraud and try to haul him to court? Or publicly spread rumors of President Monson’s mental health to undermine his leadership? Or publish trashy anti-Mormon tabloids that are rife with falsehoods, spin, and misinformation?
In all seriousness, this piece by Kelly has to be one of the most condescending, preachy, inaccurate, deranged, smug, and self-righteous articles I have encountered in recent memory. Oh, and it is breathtakingly insulting. Kelly’s utter and brazen contempt for her erstwhile fellow Saints (to say nothing of Church leaders) reveals her true colors. Not that I’m particularly outraged or offended per se. At this point, I wouldn’t expect anything less from Kelly. After all, “If [she has] called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall [she] call them of his household?” (Matthew 10:25) Rather, I just want to highlight the kind of attitude Kelly holds for those who disagree with her. That, and I want people to notice the fruits Kelly has produced since her excommunication. Has she shown contrition, humility, an openness to dialogue, or any signs of wanting to repair the breech? No. She has, instead, exhibited contempt and heaped calumny upon the heads of the Saints.
In the end, after reading Kelly’s screed, all I can think of is this clip. Then again, I’m apparently untalented, inarticulate, dull of thought, cowardly, and lack a conscience, so what do I know?
