Changing Tides: How the Church Changes Without Saying So

In January 2019, women going through the temple stopped promising to hearken to their husbands. The words had been there for decades, and then one week they weren’t. Reporters pieced the change together from people who had attended; the church, as it usually does with the temple, didn’t explain it.

I think it was a welcome change. I also think it tells you more about how the church works than any conference talk will.

The church is changing all the time. It just rarely says so out loud. This essay is about how that happens, why it happens, and the question underneath it: can the church change enough?

The shifting baseline

Biologists have a name for the way each generation takes the world it grew up in as normal: shifting baseline syndrome. A fisherman thinks the catch he saw as a boy is what a healthy ocean looks like, without knowing his grandfather saw far more. Nobody notices the change, because nobody remembers the old normal.

The church uses the same mechanism, on purpose or not, to move its norms. Look at a few changes from just the last several years:

• Sunday got shorter. In October 2018, Elder Quentin L. Cook announced that the three-hour Sunday block would become a 60-minute sacrament meeting and a 50-minute class, starting January 2019.
• Dress standards loosened. In December 2018, sister missionaries in every mission got the option of wearing dress slacks. The way I read it, the broader trend is away from specific rules and toward general principles.
• The temple language changed. Women no longer covenant to hearken to their husbands. Men and women now make the same covenants.
• The prophetic voice softened. The Doctrine and Covenants is full of “thus saith the Lord.” You rarely hear modern prophets speak that way.

A child baptized in 2019 will grow up thinking a two-hour Sunday is how it has always been. That’s how a shifting baseline works.

Why it’s happening

The faithful explanation is a good one, and I want to give it its due. Latter-day Saints believe in continuing revelation. The ninth Article of Faith says, “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (Articles of Faith 1:9). From that point of view, change isn’t an embarrassment. It’s the point of having living prophets.

I see it differently. The church needed to make these changes to stop losing members.

Think of Disneyland. It’s a unique theme park, and a magical experience for most people who visit. But at the end of the day it’s still a theme park, with crowds, long lines and the occasional power-hungry ride operator. The church is like that. It is a very unique institution. But it is still an institution, with all the same follies and challenges: changing demographics, a political and legal landscape, and sometimes saving face. No matter how spiritual and revered its laws and principles are, the church is still run through policy and statistics.

No matter how spiritual and revered our laws and principles are, the church is still run through policy and statistics.

An institution that wants to grow has to accommodate the trends of the society around it. It could hold the old line, keep every expectation and become small and strict. Other movements have faced the same choice. Jehovah’s Witnesses had to quietly reinterpret their early leaders’ predictions about the end of the world. The Latter-day Saints have chosen to adapt.

That’s why the hearken change cuts two ways for me. It reflects poorly on the church’s claim to be an immovable rock in a world of shifting values, because it plainly is an adjustment to fit current social values. And it’s most certainly a welcome change as far as I’m concerned. Both are true.

Don’t expect a rec team

Here’s where I part ways with some people who’ve left. It can be infuriating that the church won’t take more of the blame for how hard it makes leaving. But strengthening its position and building stronger walls is the nature and mission of the church.

Asking the church to become moderate is like asking a club sports team to act more like a recreation-center team: “Coach, maybe we could be a little more encouraging when they miss the basket.” If that’s what you want, go join a rec team.

The church will change its dress code, its schedule and its wording. It will not stop being a club team. If you’re waiting for it to become something it isn’t, you’ll wait a long time.

Can it change enough?

That’s the question I raised at the start, and here’s my honest answer. If the church is to survive, it must look profoundly different in 100 years than it does today. Maybe in 20.

What I’d recommend is what I’d call the chicken pox party. The best way to survive a shift in society is to expose ourselves to it in a safe way. We need to be more tolerant, not less. We need to accept that there’s more than one way to Mormon instead of sticking firmly to tradition. We need to talk more openly about forbidden topics, own our religion’s mistakes openly and honestly, and stop shaming unorthodoxy. The church will tell you that you should ask questions, but too often it hands you a list of approved ones to pick from. We need to loosen things up a little and get ready to change.

My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that the deepest change is still ahead. In the long run I suspect the church will have to let go of the claim that its founding story is literally true, while remaining a wholesome organization that provides community, leadership training and shared values. I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before.

Either way, the church that women walked into in January 2019 was not the same one they’d walked into the month before, and almost nobody announced it. The tide is already moving. The question is whether the members can be as gracious about the people who change as the church is about the changes it makes.

For what the church already does well as a community, read Everyone Knows Everyone. For where I stand with it today, read To My Mormon Family and Friends.