General Conference used to be one of my favorite times of year. After General Conference I always used to write blog posts about talks. Some conferences I actually went through and blogged about all of them. Other times I only got to write about my highlights.

My experience with and perspective on General Conference as an ex-Mormon Evangelical is now very different. But I thought it would still be interesting to go through the talks as a former member and offer my thoughts. I generally plan to go in order, but I am going to feel free to skip around or skip a talk altogether if I don’t have a lot to say.

I am going to start with the very first talk by Elder David A. Bednar entitled In the Path of their Duty. I actually listened to this talk the day it was given and I thought it was fine. I appreciated that Elder Bednar thanks LDS members for all of their service that is often thankless. This was a good and needed message.

Talking to a friend today helped me realize that I should say more on this point. In my 14 years as a Latter-day Saint, I was the beneficiary of many thankless acts of service. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are commendably focused on service. Every ward that I have ever been in was filed with people who tried their hardest to serve others like Jesus would do. I loved serving with so many wonderful and devoted Latter-day Saints in callings in the Primary and Sunday School. I love and honor these members of the Church for all of their often thankless service. And I do not ever want to send a message to the contrary.

However, his talk also made me reflect on the differences between the LDS Church and Protestant Evangelical Churches. Attending a Protestant Church made me realize how thankless service often is in the LDS Church. Members are thrown into responsibilities with almost no training whatsoever. They are expected to say yes to whatever calling is extended to them whether it fits well with their talents or whether they feel led by God to that type of service. Programs are underfunded and people often have to use their own money to supplement the their meager budgets. Members are also given menial tasks like cleaning Church buildings which can have some value but also often ends up devolving into a burden for the same 4-5 families that are willing to do it.

On the other hand, in the non-denominational Church that I attend we are encouraged to volunteer where we felt led to serve by the Lord. We are encouraged to develop our spiritual talents, and given significant training in doing so.  Programs are adequately funded with events encouraging both spiritual growth and fun. And the quality of everything from the children’s ministry to the sermons to the music is of much higher quality. It is really gratifying to be a part of a church like that.

Today, however, I had a much more negative reaction to this talk for one particular reason. Elder Bednar begins by lauding the faith of the pioneers of the “Last Wagon.” He quotes J. Reuben Clark who said:

“They of the last wagon pressed forward, worn and tired, footsore, sometimes almost disheartened, borne up by their faith that God loved them, that the restored gospel was true, and that the Lord led and directed the Brethren out in front.”

But yesterday I happened to listen to some podcasts about the Martin and Willie Handcart Company disasters. While these events are often portrayed as faith promoting stories in Church history, the reality is that they were anything but faith promoting.

If you have not already, I would recommend studying the history of these handcart companies without the faith promoting halos. Will Bagley’s article The Mormon Handcart Disasters that was published in the Journal of Mormon History is a great place to start.

Many of the pioneers in those companies were told that they needed to make a physically demanding trek despite ill health or lack of preparation because of warnings of imminent destruction that proved completely false. They were promised that the God of Israel would protect them. But they were misled.

The worst obstacles that they faced came because of incompetence by Church leaders such as Apostle Franklin D. Richards. They were then not provided with enough food to sustain themselves (a starvation diet) and required to build handcarts with inadequate materials. Many people starved to death on the trek or froze to death on the plains in a manner that was avoidable with more preparation and more support from their church leaders.

Even worse, leaders like Richards gave catastrophically bad advice in the name of God such as Richard’s assurance that God “will over-rule the storms that may come in the season thereof and turn them away, that their path may be free from suffering more than they can bear.”  When Levi Savage warned the Church leadership of impending disaster he was ignored or called out for lacking faith.

There was nothing prophetic about this process. The “Brethren out in front” were not led by the Lord. Their false prophecies and their callous disregard for the well-being of these pioneers deserves to be condemned rather than praised.

I can’t help but think that this is an apt metaphor for some of the ways that members are exploited by leaders who claim to be inspired but are anything but.

A couple more quick thoughts

• Elder Bednar assumes that those who leave do so by “sinful detours into ‘forbidden paths.’” I left the Church because I realized that it was not Christ’s Church and in order to follow my Savior, I did not take a “sinful detour[].”
• I thought Elder Bednar’s reference to those “righteous individuals who yearn to become yoked to the Savior through the authorized covenants and ordinances of His gospel—but may be prohibited from doing so by factors beyond their control” was interesting. I don’t think there are many people today who cannot receive their endowments or other temple ordinances. The main ordinance that people are not able to receive due to “factors beyond their control” relates to temple marriage/sealings. But are sealings really about “becom[ing] yoked to the Savior?” I don’t really see how the two are connected.
• This is a pretty great image, kudos to both Elder Bednar and Julie B. Beck: “[A] sleep-deprived mother comforting a frightened child while standing guard as a ‘lioness at the gate’ of her home.”