Counterpoint and Excommunication

I never finished blogging about the Counterpoint Conference—life got in the way—but I intend to finish. It just won’t be as fresh news as it could have been. One portion of the Conference that stirred me was the keynote speaker, Gay Blanchard. Gay was awarded the “Eve Award,” a recognition by the organizers of the Mormon Women’s Forum which honors those who have made contributions to enrich the lives of Mormon women that may not be noticed by the community as a whole.

Gay, a sweet white haired woman in her eighties, stay-at-home mom, wife, musician and playwright, began at midlife to diverge doctrinally with her local leaders on the subject of the Atonement. As I’ve been following along with some of the discussions lately occurring on Atonement Theory, I realize that the Mormon Church does not teach a comprehensive Atonement Theory. In fact, there has been considerable latitude in the doctrine that LDS leaders have espoused along these lines. Apparently, Gay began to reject a salvation by works paradigm.

From some of her writings available on the internet, I obtained this quote by Gay: “the whole purpose of the Law of Obedience is to convince us that we can't keep all the contradictory rules required of us by religious leaders over the centuries. Trying to do so is truly an education. We grow in our understanding of ourselves and of others; we assume responsibilities; we learn about the gospel. If we are awake, we learn painfully our many limitations. We work and work and work at trying to perfect ourselves one thing at a time, at trying to make ourselves worthy, at trying to work out our salvation. But we do not progress into higher law.” Gay says that for most Mormons “their journey stops here: working at trying to be obedient to the whole letter of the law.” Once we discover that we are unable to keep all of the commandments, we become open to experience a mighty change of heart and begin to rely on the grace of Christ to save us. This sounds not so different than some recent LDS authors, notably Steven Robinson. However, several decades ago, these thoughts were not so acceptable.

Because of Gay’s teachings on this subject, she was excommunicated from the Church. The decision was later appealed and changed to a disfellowshipping. However, much damage has been done to Gay and her family through this action. Of a large family, only one of her children continues to be active in the Church.

Lavina Fielding Anderson and I discussed this briefly in the hallway after Gay’s speech. “It might be easy for me to remain active in the Church after an excommunication,” she said. “But it’s different for the children. I don’t think I could stand a Church that did that to my mother.”

I grew up in a church that did not excommunicate or disfellowship its members. I find it a difficult policy to accept. Why does our Church feel the need to cut off members who continue to desire to belong? Even if there is sin, or doctrinal misunderstanding, it seems to me that these things would be corrected more easily from within than from without. I would prefer to leave it as the Lord’s prerogative to cut the sinner off from his presence.

I would love to hear some of my readers’ thoughts on excommunication.