(Trigger warning for violence, sexual, physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse.)

I am an abuse survivor.  When I was a child, I was exposed to a pedophile.  Then the pedophile used my body repeatedly, rendering me psychologically injured and scared.  He managed to engage me, groom me, and then use me.  When he stopped assaulting me the fourth time, he terrified me so much that I never told a soul until I was in college seeing my first counselor.  I was 20.

I used to count 4 instances of abuse on one hand, but have since been able to see that abuse is more than just the assault itself.  I was assaulted four times, but I was abused far more often as I lived with the constant stressor of social and sexual deviance in my home life.  It still makes my mind into a bit of a pretzel when I think of it in this new way, but I’m practicing and it gets easier each time.

So now, instead of saying “I was sexually abused 4 times”, I simply say that I lived with a pedophile who used my body.  He used me sexually when he groped me, but he also used me in a myriad of other ways.  He manipulated me, he intimidated me, he lied to me, and many other unhealthy, hurtful things.

Abuse is so far-reaching, permeating the air in the room, the times between assaults, all the way to the perimeter of that relationship one has with the deviant.  I’m finally getting clarity on what that means.

I’ve heard that phrase about a million times in my life. Every time someone is called to any position of leadership, teaching, or service in the church, the masses affected who are present to do so will participate in a sustaining vote. It’s an important ritual, though many do not think about its impact and many eyes are glazed over with boredom or apathy as they raise their right arms.

Why is it important to ask for this vote? It’s a way to demonstrate support, acknowledgement and agreement. A large body of people meets together and recognizes the importance of individuals in their purpose for existence. It prevents power-grabs, it helps defend against mutiny or erosion of motivation or purpose. A vote can unite, can create rational discourse where angry disagreement might have flared.

Over the last couple weeks, we have seen the viral post-sharing of Josh Weed’s Club Unicorn: In which I come out of the closet on our ten year anniversary.

In the post, Josh shares how he deals with being gay, Mormon, married to his best friend Lolly, having children, and squaring everything with the gospel, which he believes is true.  Josh and Lolly have found a working marriage in spite of the odds stacked against them.  Mixed orientation marriages are notoriously difficult to make work long term, for the obvious reasons.  But Josh explains his sex life this way:

[we have built] a sexual relationship that is based on everything partners should want in their sex-life: intimacy, communication, genuine love and affection. This has resulted in us having a better sex life than most people I personally know. Most of whom are straight. Go fig.

A pedestal itself is a separation.  A tool for “othering“.  Othering is:

A term, advocated by Edward Said, which refers to the act of emphasizing the perceived weaknesses of marginalized groups as a way of stressing the alleged strength of those in positions of power.” Othering can be done with any racial, ethnic, religious, or geographically-defined category of people.

More simply put, othering is separating yourself from someone so that you understand them less.  It’s becoming unconnected.  It’s forgetting the humanity of another person or group of people.  It’s pushing them away so that you don’t need to feel for them as much as if they were you.  Othering is losing the ability to see yourself in someone else.

Because of that, othering can be used as a weapon of control, big or small.  And it is.

Several days ago I stumbled across this infographic that was being shared on Facebook.  I clicked on it and saw that right on the top 100% is the “percentage of sacramental worship services that focus on Jesus Christ”. 

But what about all those sacrament meetings that were about food storage, or church history, or prop 8, or something else?  I suppose they are using that same line I have heard from members before: “It’s all about Christ, because this is Christ’s church”.  Well, that seems like a stretch at best, and a (hopefully) well-meaning lie at worst.

It’s being willfully misleading to say that you can talk about any topic in sacrament meeting, and as long as it is church-approved, then it has to do with Jesus Christ.

Perhaps they were referring to “worship services” as the entire 3-hour block?  There must be something Christ-centered during one of those three hours right?  It just seems like more stretching to me.

When I think of Christ-focused worship services, I think of Easter Sunday sacrament meeting where we talk about Christ, His teachings, and how to love each other.  I don’t think of politics or #10 cans.

And then I came to the “77% of members attend church at least weekly, compared to 39% of the U.S. average” about halfway down.

I immediately wondered which population they were using for their 77% calculation.  They are referring to the U.S. only which is a smart move, considering the low retention rate in many other countries.  (We’ve all heard the massive number of baptisms in South America, coupled with low percentage of those still attending a year later, right?)

A friend of mine crunched some numbers when we were talking about this, and here’s what he had to say regarding the U.S. numbers: “14,131,467 members / 28,660 congregations * 77% attendance = 379.6 average attendance / congregation. To get this average, for every branch with 40 people attending they need a ward with 720 people attending.”

So I’m guessing that the only way they can get 77% is to only count active members of the church in wards and branches in the U.S.  Activity in the church is usually determined by whether or not you attend sacrament meeting once a quarter.