Growing up in a fairly liberal Orange County town I was exposed to differing cultures and religions. Hindu, Jewish, Jehovah’s Witness, Church of Religious Science, and Alternative Spiritualities. I remember a girl who was Hindu who wore different types of clothes than the other girls. The inner dialog:
She is Hindu.
She wears the clothes of her religion.
I’ve learned something about Hinduism.
I remember a girl I had a crush on whose birthday was soon. I offered her a gift. She said she couldn’t accept it because she was Jehovah’s Witness. I added that to my memory:
Jehovah’s Witness’ do not celebrate Birthdays.
It is against the Jehovah’s Witness teachings.
I’ve learned something about Jehovah’s Witnesses.
A boy in my class and told us about Hanukkah and how for eight nights they celebrated. Memories added.
Jewish people don’t celebrate Christmas.
Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah.
I’ve learned something about Judaism.
I was taking yoga classes here in town. The teacher was a Sikh. She explained the reason why she wore a turban was because she was a Sikh.
My Yoga teacher is a Sikh.
Sikhs wear turbans.
I’ve learned something about Sikhism.
I had been baptized LDS Mormon for almost a year. I had my ears pierced for over 20 years. One day the Elders quorum President came to me and said:
As you are progressing toward becoming and Elder in our church you should take out your earrings. None of the other Elders or High Priests have their ears pierced. I don’t think you will have a problem with that because I see, you wear the White Shirt.
And then he quoted President Hinckley on women being restricted in their ear jewelry. Did he just assume I would follow leaders’ instructions because I wear The White Shirt? After 11 years of missionary discussions and about a year into the church I realized:
Mormon men dress in White Shirts.
It is a part of their Religion.
I am now a Mormon Man.
I’ve learned something about Mormonism.
The first Priesthood session I went to I was the only one in the seats of the Church who had on jeans, casual shirt, and sandals. When I was a member of other churches the functions that were outside of the traditional Sunday service was casual dress. How could this slip my field of radar? I missed this one what else am I missing. One thought went through my head . . . .
“I wonder what I’ll need to change next . . . . my skin color?”
And then I found out that yes that is next. There are hopes that one day the Lamanite people would have the curse of dark skin lifted from them and they would become lighter and lighter and lighter.
And it all started with a the comment about my White Shirt. I guarantee you that if I converted to Sikhism I would have been given the Turban talk a lot sooner than a year after my conversion.
So. I pose a question to all the lifelong Mormon members out there. What else is there to conform to? I don’t want to be taken by surprise any more than I have to be. I ask of the web community to mount up and put the issues on the table for all the converts out there like myself.
Jamie Trwth
Jaime, you pose a good question as there is an urge toward conformity in practically every religion, as you’ve pointed out through your anecdotes.
I feel the need to conform to any standard that I believe the Lord wants me to conform to. I ask myself: “Would I feel comfortable standing in front of the Savior with x, y, or z?”
If the answer is “yes,” I feel fine.
If the answer is “no,” I feel a need to change.
For what it’s worth, I don’t share the same views as some Mormons about what the Savior actually cares about. But I don’t have to, as Elder Wirthlin so eloquently pointed out in his recent General Conference talk. We don’t all have to think, talk, and act the same. Amen, Elder Wirthlin.
Out of curiosity, in which city in OC were you raised? I live in OC, so just curious.
Jamie,
You’ll probably be asked to purchase a trampoline for the back yard next.
#1 - The city was Cypress.
I agree everyone must not think, talk, and act alike. But when that thinking and talking isn’t like the others in the church there are problems. One Sunday I was asked to give the closing prayer in Priesthood. I didn’t close with ‘Jesus Christ’ I closed with ‘Jesus’. Only one other person said Amen out loud. The others were confused. Maybe I am here to mix and shake things up in my ward. God knows our family has done so already.
Jamie Trwth
The next, and ultimate, measure of conformity will be an NRA pin on your lapel (you have progressed to wearing a suit with that white shirt I hope) and voting republican the rest of your life.
Oh, and some Mormons think all Mormons’ hair should be missionary style (short) and that you should be clean-shaven. And no tattoos.
I hear ya, Jaime. The church needs you, and your ward members need you. And if people have a mindset that everyone needs to be exactly the same, then people like you and Elder Wirthlin can lovingly explain to them that we don’t all have to be the same.
There is indeed a pressure by some to conform to things they think are important, but that really aren’t. I figure they’re well meaning but not well informed. As Elder Wirthlin said just last weekend: “God did not create an orchestra of different personalities only to enjoy the piccolos.”
Like I said, ultimately we’re going to have to answer to the Savior, so if I feel comfortable and confident that I’d feel fine standing in front of him and explaining to him why I did x, y, and z, then I don’t worry too much about when other people think I may be doing things wrong, because I don’t answer to them.
#2 John Nilsson
Hhhmmm Now that you say something about a trampoline I think I want one. Kinda reminds me of the classic 2001 movie Josie and the Pussycats. Where teens are being brain washed to like certain things they wouldn’t otherwise like.
John are you trying to get me to purchase a trampoline. I suddenly feel the need to travel to Toys R Us.
#6 Andrew Ainsworth
We have a Samoan Ward that meets in our building the most of the men wear the traditional lavalava. But the local Samoan leaders never wear the lavalava in their position. I find that a bit sad. Culture is who you are independently of your religion.
Jamie Trwth
Jaime, #8 I agree. We have a brother in my ward who wears the lavalava to church each week as well. Not sure why the local leaders wouldn’t; I’m unaware of any lavalava ban, and I wonder whether that is self-imposed or top-down imposed. If the latter, I wonder how far from “up the ladder” that comes from. I have a hard time believing the Quorum of Twelve would care if a Samoan Bishopric member were to wear a lavalava on the stand. Sometimes local leaders take some liberties with creating additional rules that the Brethren have never seen fit to impose on the Church. I think their idea is that obedience = goodness so that more and more rules must = more goodness too.
I should add that the “greatest generation” that leads the Church now was greatly affected by the military culture of the WWII and afterwards. I mean, just look at the most popular hairstyle in the 50’s: a military style haircut. In their generation, dress standards are supremely important.
That’s just not the case with us in the younger generation, as evidenced by one of our more popular dress standards of the past decade or so: Grunge. So we’re really not all that worried about looking like a spiffed up military regiment.
I imagine that this particular generational gap in dress standards will naturally fade away when our generation is running the Church. But by then, our kids and grandkids will think we’re a bunch of old fuddy duddies because we don’t wear steel bars in our noses.
Jamie….I loved the post. Thank you so much. I begrudge having to wear the white shirt…and if I can slip a blue shirt past my wife in the morning then I do that. To be honest I rarely wear the suit and most times have a tie. No one has brought me up on it but then again I havent been called to any callings. I am quite happy with that considering how busy I am with school, work, family life and the online community.
I totally feel for you about the skin colour stuff. I went on a mission to South Africa and I had buddies who had problems with this stuff. All I can say…and I will be polite about this because people will read what I say (personally you would see my vitriol for this part of our history) just dont think it is what mormonism is….we have it in our history but most progressive members dont and shouldnt believe in that sort of skin colour changing stuff.
We really do need people like you in the church…..cheers for the post.
Jamie asks, “What else is there to conform to?”
Has anyone come into your house and nailed a flowery, wood-embossed “Proclamation on the Family” on your wall? Or a “Families are Forever” sign? Or a kitchy oil painting of Joseph and Emma? Or a gold-framed picture of the temple? Or a framed needle-point “CTR” thingie? Or any of other such Mormon kitch? If not, I’ll make sure they get to your house soon.
Just be glad you weren’t around a Mormon youth in the early 80s in So Cal when a certain leader made the rounds to speak at jam-packed firesides (for youth and their parents) around the O.C. to speak on the dangers of rock music. His big closing was a five-minute long list of so-called dangerous bands or singers, alphabetically arranged, that he read aloud from the pulpit. As he ticked off one beloved band after the other, with my Mom furiously scribbling down the list as fast as she could, I sank deeper and deeper into my seat until I nearly slumped on the floor. How I wish I had a transcript of that talk today.
Other potential conformities:
A stake in Arizona was declining Melchezedek Priesthood callings to men who wore facial hair.
A priesthood leader in Japan advised me that I needed to teach an investigator that he needed to stop drinking Coke before his baptism.
A recent young male investigator in our ward was told that he needed to get a haircut
I think wearing the white shirt as a youth may have some benefit for potential missionaries, and I wear one keeping in mind that the youth are watching me and that I may, at any time, have the privilege of helping them with the sacrament without standing out as different from them. My cousin wore light blue shirts, a bow tie and a moustache the entire years he was Branch President and Bishop and he was well-loved. That style just suits him, and since he wasn’t in the central corridor, the Stake President accepted his rebuttal that white shirts were not scriptural. Though good natured prophetic advice was given on ear rings, it is not scriptural.
Matt, you just reminded me of some stake dance experiences along those lines. There was one particular stake in my county that was way over the top on controlling music selection and banned just about everything under the sun except maybe songs performed before 1959. At each dance they posted a list of banned songs that, I kid you not, started at the top of the gym door and went all the way down to the floor and then a ran for a few feet on the floor. It gets better. The list took up four gym doors.
It would list the name of the song, the artist, and then the offensive reason why the song was banned. Here is an example I remember, and I swear I am not making this up:
“With or Without You” U2 Encourages suicide
I say again, I am not making this up. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since then. I blame Tipper Gore and the PMRC.
#12 - Rigel, those examples make me sad. Example is one thing (and often too much when it implies necessary conformity), but requiring short hair or a white shirt . . . *shakes head resignedly*
Just to be clear, I support the principle behind basic standards of appearance 100%, but specifics smack too much of the Law of Moses to me.
The white shirt is cultural. Same with ear jewelry. It has absolutely nothing to do with our religion or salvation, no matter how many leaders claim otherwise. But it might influence your acceptance in the Mormon community, unfortunately.
This stuff makes me crazy. I wore 3 earrings per ear throughout my entire mission. When the new “jewelry mandate” came out, I figured it wasn’t that big a deal, so I cut back to one per ear. I tend to comply out of respect for the requester (unless the requester is clearly overreaching), but too much of this stuff makes me nuts. When Dallin H. Oaks said the earring and tattoo thing, I viewed it as counsel toward the youth of the church to not do something that they would later regret. In my sister’s Utah County ward they denounced flip flops from the stand. In my ward 30 mins north of there girls were wearing bedroom slippers to church. Here in AZ, flip flops are ubiquitous.
Funny thing is that the scripture that you shouldn’t have to be commanded in all things is taken two different ways: the way I prefer is that some things are too trivial to get hung up about, but others would say it’s that we should all independently and uniformly come to the same conclusions without being told. Just remember these words when you are being treated like a child: “You are not the boss of me!”
If past LDS leaders came into our local ward we wouldn’t let them pass the sacrament with their facial hair and hair below their ears.
# 16 hawkgrrrl
Plus if you are told what to do on every level of your life . . . . how are you to set your own if you are excommunicated from the church? Your world would crumble. How would you know what was wrong or right anymore?
Well, I’m far too diplomatic (or accomodating or whatever) to ever be ex’d (knock wood), but I have learned from experience that local leaders occasionally make stuff up. You have to know your stuff better than they do about what is and what isn’t a commandment. No one is getting ex’d over earrings, shirts, flip flops or the fact that they dislike MoTab. In fact, I often take delight in ignoring things I know are not from TPTB. It’s the same at work. You figure out who the real decision makers are, and when others try to get uppity, you just ignore them.
Personal request alert:
Andrew, please e-mail me. You have the proper address.
I am a 60 year old 5th generation Mormon and have come to realize that conformity starts from within and needs no push from without. I have fallen into the hole you are in many times. Now I watch others fall into that same hole. Unfortunately, you are a recent convert taking your first plunge and yes there will be other plunges for you. It has nothing to do with the color of your shirt or your earring. It has everything to do with you losing sight of the prize. Do not lose sight of the prize because of what someone says. Keep the faith and follow the council of the Brethern by listening to your heart and the inspiration you receive from the Spirit. This may sound like a mormon oxymoron but go where the spirit leads you. Remember, this gospel is between you and your Father in Heaven. One on one. Always has been and always will be. Therein lies the beauty of the Restored Gospel. As we conform to the Spirit we become more like Him and of one mind and one spirit. The difficulty comes because we must find that confirmation through the Spirit, not our friends or mentors. Perhaps one decision I made long ago would be helpful. “I love the Lord and because I love the Lord, I will never let what anyone says or does to me keep me from going to ALL of my meetings and seeking the Spirit”. It has never been about hair length, ear rings, facial hair, white shirts or any other earthly issue. It has been about losing sight of the prize. It has been that way for the 60 years I have been alive and I’m confident it will never change.
Sigh . . . I think I have to rock the boat a bit.
We tend to look at things through the rubric of personal expression without asking ourselves WHY we take on the form of that personal expression. Many of the expressions we adopt have underlying cultural implications that are a larger part of our cultural post-modern narcissism that rebels against systems and order. The downgrade is progressive. Many of these expressions are rooted in:
laziness
deconstruction
rebellion
sloppines
defiance
identification with counterculture
etc.
Unbeknownst to many, there is order to this chaos. Styles come from somewhere and the purveyors understand how dress affects manners and behavior. I think we should strive to be our very best in dress, manner, and speech, whatever the current culture deems that to be. In 1890 it was a beard with chops. Now its clean-cut with a suit and tie. That may change as well and probably will in the next two decades where ties may be antiquated and longer hair more conservative.
As long as we question ourselves and our motives, challenging ourselves to dress and speak better, not using uniqueness, identity, individuality, or expression as an excuse for laziness, then we have a point in our dress and grooming choices. If wearing these earrings represents your best self, by all means. If I were a bishop, that’s how I would counsel my youth. Teach them the ideal of putting forth your best self and letting them choose. Taking it upon yourself to correct in this way as your Elders’ Quorum did can be a slippery slope.
Dennis, Amen brother.
Hang in there, Jaime, I will bet you a milkshake that with each passing year, you will see less and less emphasis placed on these types of things that perturb you. It’s generational. And generational differences naturally fade away. But one day people of our generation will be running things. We will be the old folks and our grandkids will think we’re off our rockers. So I try to treat my elders who care more about this type of stuff than I do with the same patience and respect that I hope to receive from my grandkids. Because if I set the bad example now in the way I react to the older generation, those chickens are going to come home to roost in a big way when I’m in my old age.
Ah yes… actually as Missionaries I remember being specifically instructed not to have a “white shirt” talk with investigators. Although we did discover that during the “what to expect on your first day at church” that mentioning that most people would be wearing white shirts and ties, and that women would be wearing dresses was useful.
I remember one particular fellow who came wearing a wife beater, ragged jeans with holes in them, and flip flops- to sacrament.
Afterwards the Bishop took me aside an told me not to worry- he’d talk to the older members who might “make a scene” about it, and remind them that the first time he attended church in this ward (he was a convert too) that he also showed up in a wife beater.
Seeing as that Bishop was known for being a bit of a hard nose and stickler for all the rules I found it very enlightening.
There is a very legitimate reason for this.
Wearing White Shirts or Accepting Christ as you Savior?
Not wearing earrings or Accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet?
Which are the essential doctrines and which are not?
Missionaries (and most of the time Sunday school teachers) are trained to focus on the essential doctrines, with the general assumption being that people will just pick up the more cultural and less important doctrines by osmosis.
#23 Andrew Ainsworth
Is it that it is generational and it will fade? Or do we just conform because we are old and don’t like to push the envelope? In that way Petter Brown is correct. If we conform due to being lazy we are not putting our best self forward. I will always be putting my best self forward. And being lazy from time to time. You have to mix things a bit you know.
FWIW, I didn’t hear a lot about it at conference this time, but I did hear a lot about embracing those who are different. Different appearance, skills, and backgrounds. I agree with Andrew that it will fade over time, because it is a cultural issue, and the times they are a changin.
It will fade Jaime, but we’ll just have to be patient as it does. Can’t make the sun set any faster, but set it will, on its own, naturally.
Besides, we’ve made great progress. Haven’t you heard yet that the S N double-O P, D O double-G-izee just converted?!
Steve Martin baptized him, and Lionel Richie was one of the witnesses.
Jamie, I haven’t worn a white shirt to church for years, I have a beard, occasionally wear a bow tie, sometimes wear the nice t-shirt with a suit, and I’m in the bishopric. (Ok, so I’m just the membership clerk, but technically I am.) For a joke, I got one of those magnetic earings and wore one to my mission reunion. The mission pres was shocked, because he thought it was real. Anyway, earrings aren’t my style, but I don’t begrudge anyone for wearing them, unless they’re wearing 10–I’ve got to agree with Pres Hinckley on that one. I don’t wear the lavalava, but might if I lived in Hawaii….
Anyway, the church needs more people like you (and hopefully me.) Don’t let the culture police get you down. Coke in moderation is ok, and vote democrat.
(Never buy a minivan.)
Want to see how far we still have to go on these cultural/dress code issues? Grow a beard and listen in terror to the questions you’ll be asked.
Great question, and great responses. I’m a bit of a lurker around here, but this particular subject makes me think. I too had six holes total in my ears, and wore hoops in all of them during my mission. When Pres. Hinckley made his request, it took me about a year to concede. But nine years later, I still put an earring through each hole once a month, just in case anyone changes the standard! =)
On the white shirt issue (though it can certainly apply elsewhere), I wonder how many comply out of respect and obedience (to either a personal conviction, or a Priesthood authority (EQ Pres, etc…)) vs. those who do so to “fit in” and what difference does it make, other than the obvious blessings of obedience?
The Church digs the clean-cut image that is required of BYU students and missionaries. It’s essentially been elevated to at least a quasi-official status. The search term “white shirt” turns up 144 results at lds.org. We’ve had conference talks directing us not to dress in a “slouchy” manner.
I don’t think we do anybody any favors when we get preoccupied with shirt colors or hair cuts or earrings. This was driven home to me just last Saturday as I watched the priesthood session of conference at the local chapel. The room was filled with men who, almost uniformly, were white, were wearing white shirts and suits, were clean-shaven, and had conservative haircuts. The men we were watching on the screen fit the same description. However, there was one man sitting several rows in front of me who didn’t didn’t fit that mold. He was African-American, had cornrows, and was wearing a dark T-shirt and jeans. He looked as if he was very uncomfortable. About 20 minutes into the session, he got up and left.
I don’t know if he was a member or investigator. But in either case, walking into a room full of clean-shaven white men in white shirts and dark suits, and then watching a hierarchy of older clean-shaven white men in white shirts and dark suits address a conference center filled to the brim with clean-shaven white men in white shirts and dark suits must have been very imposing. If you deviated from that norm even modestly, how could you not feel uncomfortable?
I think it’s about time we stop trying to export Utah Mormon cultural norms, which are deeply embedded in upper-middle class white business culture, to the rest of the world. If the boys in Utah prefer to wear white shirts and and part their hair, then that’s fine, but I see no reason for expecting everyone else to follow suit.
Well for what it’s worth, I love a colored shirt with a tie to coordinate it with and a suit. Looks so nice.
Teresa: “I wonder how many comply out of respect and obedience (to either a personal conviction, or a Priesthood authority (EQ Pres, etc…)) vs. those who do so to “fit in” and what difference does it make, other than the obvious blessings of obedience?” My guess is 20%/80%. Cultural conformity is just human nature. I don’t think people give it much thought really. If I went to a mega church, I’d be wearing pants. I used to think you should dress for the theater (still do on Broadway), but if people go in jeans, eventually, I start wearing my jeans, too.
My son’s deacon’s quorum wants even more uniformity (the boys, not the leaders). They want the same haircuts, the same pants, to have all the boys wearing sport jackets. My son likes to buck the trend, so he is sometimes teased for being an outsider for only wearing white shirt with black pants (vs. the sport jacket with conservative haircut too). Like me, he complies with what’s been handed down from the pulpit (the one in SLC), but doesn’t go for all these extras.
I’m still working on the real commandments, thanks. Not looking for more yet.
Jamie, I hope you’re also posing these questions and others to your bishop and stake pres in private. I wouldn’t trust blog commenters for the official low-down on white shirts, earrings, facial hair, wearing shorts, etc.
Your advancement to the Melchizedek priesthood comes under both the Bishop’s and the Stake President’s authority. So what is required versus suggested versus strongly recommended should come from them, not us.
Some of these issues are in the realm of “not required, but are suggested, so as not to trip up others.”
My best friend has a 9th grade daughter who is now a typical teenager. She whines about trying to be different…..except all her “different” clothes/makeup/hair look exactly like….her friends or the people who work at some cool store at the mall.
We should examine exactly why we don’t want to “conform.”
We should think about why we don’t want to be “judged” on our appearance yet we insist on expressing ourselves via our appearance. We can’t have it both ways.
hawkgrrl: If your ward is putting a “uniform requirement” (or strong suggestion) on the deacons, you may want to (or suggest your husband) bring that up with someone at the Stake level. Our ward tried something along those lines, putting a new tradition into sac meeting using the primary, and it was quashed by the stake.
Apparently, there might be a policy against creating new “gospel traditions.”
I can see where a family moves to a new ward that doesn’t have the “all deacons must dress alike” rule, and the poor deacon who moved now considers his new ward to be apostate because they don’t follow the rule.
Kind of like the “you can’t get baptized until you give up colas” thing.
Twice I had a new-member confirmation disrupted in the middle of the ordinance by a priesthood holder (one time by a branch pres) who thought the ordinance was invalid because I didn’t use the phraes “we lay our hands upon your head.” According to the official priesthood manuals describing the confirmation ordinance, you physically do lay your hands upon the person’s head, but you don’t need to say that you do.
I think it’s okay to to discuss these things, but as I wrote to Jamie, it’s also important to get the official answers from your local official sources.
Does a man actually have to remove (and keep off) his earrings in order to be ordained an elder? Unless speficifics are given in the General Handbook of Instructions, I think that’s more or less up to the stake president, since he presides over the Melchizedek priesthood in his stake.
I know in one ward, the bishop required the aaronic priesthood to remove their earrings in order to bless the sacrament. One priest, right after be blessed the sacrament, and during the meeting, immediately went to the men’s rest-room and put his earrings back in, then re-entered the chapel to sit down with his family.
Yet in the same ward, a 40-something convert, with biker-style permanent earrings in his upper ear, blessed the sacrament. His couldn’t be removed without cutting them off and destroying the earring. So apparently, that was the bishop’s call.
Hawkgrrl — you make an excellent point. There are many more vital “commandments”, the perfect obedience of which we all fall short, to worry about than whether or not one is conforming to a societal/cultural standard. In Utah, especially, too may get caught up in the appearance of being righteous and ignore the actual acts that make one so.
Bookslinger, in the deacons quorum, it’s not the leaders - just the boys are pressuring each other. It’s the male equivalent of girls calling each other up before school to make sure what we wore didn’t clash (yes, we used to do this, in addition to only going to the bathroom in groups).
jks - “We should examine exactly why we don’t want to “conform.” We should think about why we don’t want to be “judged” on our appearance yet we insist on expressing ourselves via our appearance. We can’t have it both ways.” I agree with your sentiment, but I would add that we should also examine why we try to enforce conformity, and why we think it’s okay to judge someone based on what they wear or whether or not they choose to conform. Pride (in the Pres. Benson pride talk sense) is the sin here, and all are prone to it; it just manifests differently.
Just to share a comment I posted on another blog:
Imo, there are cultural aspects to many of our “rules”, but there are few cultural aspects to most (if not all) core commandments and principles. The principles are used within cultures to create the specific “rules” that buffer the commandments - simply because our “natural (wo)man” can’t help it. We just have to complicate simple things. At the most fundamental and personal level, I don’t care one whit for “rules” - as long as I am applying the principles and obeying the commandments. However, whenever certain “rules” are seen as necessary within a given culture, I adhere to those rules - as long as they are not destructive in nature.
White shirts in church is a good example. I will wear pretty much any color shirt in church, when I attend as a regular member. When I attend in my official calling, I wear a white shirt, suit and tie - since I have been asked personally to do so as a part of our leadership culture. When I attend Stake Council meetings of various kinds, I often wear my work clothes (polo and slacks), since it is not a “public meeting”, sometimes I go there straight from work and my direct Priesthood leader has not told me not to do so. I wish I lived in a culture where there was no need for “rules”, but I understand their necessity. I just bristle sometimes when I think they are imposed as if they actually are commandments.
Bookslinger–every stake pres is different. Our stake president wants all deacons to be in the white shirt uniform. Yes, I’m in a quite conservative stake. I don’t think my bishop cares, but is supporting the stake president’s mandate about the white shirts. I haven’t been told to shave yet, but the 1st counselor had to shave his moustache after 2 years of serving in the bishopric with one.
I teach seminary and have been told by the stake leaders that I should be in a white shirt and tie every morning. If they will meet me at the building I teach at every morning of the week, at the hour that I teach, with a lesson prepared, and dressed in a white shirt.. and then tell me that everything I do is somehow less impactful to the students if I’m in a nice blue, tan, or peach shirt… well they can just get up themselves every morning and teach.
I have yet to own a suit since my mission (24 years ago). I do own 2 sport coats and a couple of white shirts. I figure I run through a white shirt when the others are dirty. Including Sunday.
In the church, we tend to get hung up on the funniest things. There is about to be a Priest/Laurel Regional Prom in SW Washington State. This should be a VERY big deal. However, to hear the leaders talk about it, and to observe the web site, you would get the feeling that what they are doing is having a modest dress event, and happening to have some music on at the same time. I think you could come to the thing smelling of booze, dirty, im-moral, but as long as the ladies dress meets standards, all is well… Geesh. the things we worry about.
GGT
Culture becomes habit becomes seen as command. For example, does anyone *really* want to suggest that someone whose right arm has been amputated can’t partake of the sacrament correctly - that his situation is allowable as an “alternative” to the “right way”? Does anyone *really* want to suggest that God watches us and gets upset when I pass the sacrament without tucking my left hand behind my back? Do we really think he cares exactly how the deacons line up at the sacrament table? Would he be happier if they lined up in order of height or by age or coordinated by hair color? That last question was obviously stupid, but how is it ANY different than the left arm tuck rule? It’s not.
My general rule of thumb: If a practice has no other motivation other than conformity - no spiritual benefit or symbolic significance - it nearly always, if not always, is culture and not doctrinal. If it really is vital for our salvation, it will be recorded. “Unwritten Order” means multiplicity of interpretation - just like the game where you go around the circle and what is said at the beginning is completely different by the time it gets all the way around that circle. It is ain’t written, it ain’t real and shouldn’t be enforced, imho.
Re: In my sister’s Utah County ward they denounced flip flops from the stand. In my ward 30 mins north of there girls were wearing bedroom slippers to church. Here in AZ, flip flops are ubiquitous.
I have always thought it a bit of a double standard that a culture of white shirts and ties are pushed for the young men where the young women are free to wear such comfortable things as t-shirts and flip flops. But I will continue to keep this observation to myself after airing it just this once.
# 43. Ray
You mean you have to tuck your left hand behind your back when you pass the sacrament? I actually pass the sacrament with my left hand. Maybe that’s why they don’t ask me to pass any longer.
Unwritten Order sound so authoritative. I am coining a new term this day . . . and it will be called . . . “Virtual Commandments”.
Virtual Commandments: Commandments that virtually change from Stake to Stake.
Jamie Trwth
Jamie, the others do; I don’t - and since I have a highly visible stake calling, nobody says anything to me. That, in and of itself, also bugs me. (that I “get away with” not doing things because of my calling that others are told they have to do - I hate double standards.)
Rigel - I can’t disagree with you, but as a woman in church, the thing that I always find irritating is that I’m in a dress, legs (and sometimes arms) exposed, wearing shoes which expose most of my foot, shivering from the air conditioner that is blasting in the Gospel Doctrine room, while my husband in his long pants, long sleeved shirt & tie, jacket, socks and business shoes is sweating like a pig. This disparity just makes no sense whatsoever! No matter how you slice it, no dress or skirt is as warm as pants with socks–not even in the ballpark.
I confess this issue of “purity practices” is hard to sort out. It’s important, but obviously it’s not.
Last night I began to re-read Miller’s “Hidden Gospel of Matthew.” He compellingly addresses this very subject within a New Testament setting. But he’s also a scriptural Transformationalist (which I am not strictly one) so he considers it important to focus of scriptural teachings that transcend time, that self-evidently “export” to new cultures, times and places. He clearly delineates between issues — in this case Levitical Jewish holiness/purity practices and those teachings/commands which are seen as moral or ethical in nature. He makes a compelling argument that it is only religious moral and ethical standards that can be exported; holiness/purity practices are a living, if transitional, identifier with one’s orthopraxy within a community.
He notes how violation of purity practices was considered an “abomination” (hatred), which, while a strong word, is not the same as a damnable sin. But such purity violations were still serious, especially since they reflected not only on the individual, but the person’s family, as well as the holiness of the whole of the faith community. Now, like non-historical scriptural midrash, it would be tempting to discard holiness standards since they are not the foundational, “exportable” Gospel. But one can’t just discard such out of hand if the New Testament is considered a teacher, and “authority” in the matter. Here we find Paul is much more liberalizing of holiness standards (Jewish dietary standards, pagan meat altar sacrifice consumption, circumcision, etc.) for _Gentile_ Christian faith communities, but still practices some himself, as well as upholding them for Jewish Christians. Furthermore, even among the Gentiles he upholds some Levitical holiness standards (anti-sodomy) and adds his own. Nevertheless, you also see the Gospel of Matthew, written ~six decades later, and while anti-post-temple Pharisaical in tone, still upholds some Jewish holiness standards that Gentile converts did not practice mainly since the Matthew community was predominantly Jewish converts. In sum, the Matthew Gospel appeals to holiness standards as important even if not the “major” issues.
Applying this observation to modern Mormonism, is it easy to see, IMO, that The White Shirt is merely a cultural holiness standard, not Gospel essential. Yet, on the other hand, you have a holiness standard, like the WoW, which is culturally enforced as if it were a moral and ethical issue (you can’t get in the temple if a violator of a certain ilk), but certainly not strictly enforced (meat overconsumption anyone?) nor, in the end, will violation get you disfellowshipped or excommunicated (per Handbook). Furthermore, Mormon Corridor holiness standards, such as The Shirt, and The Earrings are exported around the world, as if such were more than “just” a holiness standard. Therefore, do these standards apply only so much as one wishes to advance within the church hierarchy, but not if one doesn’t wish such advancement, or isn’t culturally, strictly, a Utah Mormon? Do they only apply so long as the Mormon community is a small, protected and distinct population, as Christian Gentiles once were? (However if this were the case Utah Corridor-area Mormonism should be the most liberalized, but we see this is not so.) Does the religion just need to mature, like modern-day Christianity, until at some point there will be both stricter traditionalist-based wards and other moderate convert “Gentile” wards — and a practicing Mormon would be free to seek out the one to his liking? It is hard to know because the Church has, and continues, to exercise a lot of authoritarian and American corporation-like holiness standards, and clearly does not delineate them “merely” as such. Furthermore it affirms the abandonment of local cultural expressions such as tattoos, more casual attire, facial hair, hairstyle length, or body piercings.
I favor, despite any import Mormons give to such holiness standards, that such are more a reflection of the immaturity (not meant pejoratively) of the faith; given time, the relaxation of such standards, or delineation of them to some localized areas more than others, is bound to occur. And when that happens, as we are seeing it happen already, the foundational “exportable” Mormon gospel will continue to be easier to discern. But like the New Testament Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, we may never find open tolerance of those who comfortably live and exercise their faith within a community of more liberalized holiness standards. Could “the White Shirt” be the early Christian circumcision issue of modern Mormonism?
Oh ye un-whiteshirted of the heart!
JfQ, very well said. I would answer in the negative to the final question, but the overall message is spot-on in many ways.
Polygamy might be a better correlary to circumcision - a religious practice that was critical to the covenant nature of the religion itself but that died symbolically as outside and inside forces necessitated new revelation. Baptism replaced circumcision as the outward manifestation of the covenant, just as temple attendance in general (even as an individual) has replaced polygamy as the outward manifestation of our current covenant. I am amazed more members don’t use circumcision as a counter-exapmle whenever others claim polygamy simply couldn’t have been abandoned and the Church still be guided by God - both fundamentalists and those outside the Church. All arguments to that effect also would indict the cessation of circumcision as the covenant symbol and the replacement of it by baptism, since it is CLEAR scripturally that circumcision was taught as an everlasting symbol for God’s chosen people.
Nice, Rigel. Wish I would have thought of that one.
Ray (50):
My final question was a bit glib if mainly thrown out there for humourous effect. I agree with you: polygamy is a stronger correlative — but I contend not entirely so. I think the sexual practices nature of it, and the lying/deceitfulness/non-disclosure of its earliest days of implementation reaches strongly into the area of morality. Therefore it’s not quite so easy to write off its dying out simply as the “un-exportability” of it as a holiness standard. However, in the same vein Polygamy does very much does show evidence of dying out by the same measurement — especially when one considers how revolted most modern Mormons are by the practice. The canonicity D&C 132 notwithstanding, it goes to show the more “holiness standard” nature of the practice rather than being an essential doctrine of the Mormon gospel.
===
Perhaps an historical correlation — not to circumcision per se — but to the issue of holiness standards vs. foundational spiritual and moral/ethical gospel teachings might be illustrated thus:
If one were to see the LDS church make a comfortable allowance to not only allow, but recognize and VALUE the mystical import of Maori facial tattoos to those who have them, and would culturally want them. Or to say to converts who had a practice of drinking green tea, coffee or having a glass of wine with a meal before being baptised that continuing such afterward is okay, since there really is no negative effect of consuming any of these in moderation. But then the church, in the same vein, would simultaneously emphasize the importance of the Mormon Corridor dress and dietary standards for traditional, culturally reared Mormons likewise as important. What you would see is some Mormons thinking this was unfair, or, at worse immoral, and offensive to God. But this is precisely where we find the early church. On one hand, Paul, it appears, would encourage such new LDS converts given such leniency of holiness standards to not willfully flaunt it in front of the traditionalists. Similarly, he would encourage the validity for the traditionalists to maintain their standards, to refrain from tattoos, or to maintain their stigma with coffee, etc., — if anything to give them a cultural identity, which ultimately shows an individual willingness to conform with the faith of the community (even if they aren’t necessary to the Gospel per se).
Indeed, you find the LDS church beginning to enter this phase of its evolution. As data shows that many of the WoW health prohibitions, for example, are “merely” holiness standards, you see the church not emphasizing that the blessings of WoW obedience are as a result of causally-linked commandment:health benefits, but more the necessity for obedience to a standard, and that God recognizes and rewards _the obedience_. Now some would say this is authoritarian, or cult-like behavior, and I only partially agree IF the globalizing church rigidly fights conformity with this evolutionary reality for too long. So far, they gradually are “mainstreaming” — letting natural cultural holiness standards evolve as the foundational ethical, spiritual and moral essentials continue to become more clear. As said before I think the distinctiveness of Mormon Corridor “holiness standards” is more indicative of the immaturity (young history) of the faith, and especially, when it was a young faith, its need to create distinct social/community identities apart from the mainstream. This “odd” distinctiveness worked especially well for nineteenth century millenialist Mormons, but in the modern age “mainstreaming” will continue to exert its influence, and slackening of holiness performances will result.
What we don’t see clearly in scripture is the “missing link” persons who transcended changing holiness paradigms as gospel essentials were embraced by new peoples, times and cultures (particularly the modern age) and old cultural norms sloughed off. We definitely get a strong clue in Jesus and Paul, but when it comes to modern Mormonism it requires delicacy to draw conclusions. If a given LDS man is, for example, to change from a norm prescribing white shirts and proscribing facial hair and an earring, Paul, it would seem, would generally favor that man should conform with his community. Nevertheless, at some point, as enough men say “this standard is a holiness standard that doesn’t resonate with me” you will likely see a paradigm shift. (But of course you won’t see the dress standard change if such a standard does remain an exportable standard that resonates with future Mormon communities.) Once that shift happens you get the benefit of hindsight to see it really “merely” was a cultural holiness standard, and not a gospel essential.
Remember the “abomination” ascribed to Levitical holiness standard violations would largely be a penalty to those **who wished to remain, be accepted, and grow within their community of faith**. They were not of a weight as a penalty of sins against moral and ethical standards. Just as Jesus, upon John’s death set up shop preaching in the Zabulon wilderness away from his “hometown” the Hellenizing Nazareth and Galilee, so does it take gentle Mormon “revolutionaries / missing links” who don’t need their traditional faith community, per se, for genuine spiritual growth with God, but aren’t doing so just to be spiteful and rebellious. Again, a delicate lesson to put into practice, to be sure, without causing the offenses of which Paul would condemn. And certainly without causing the freethinking anarchist spirit at which Mormon hierarchy bristles.
grow a beard, it’s the blue shirt of faces
“The blue shirt of faces” - Nice!