In which I renounce politics

Many years ago, during a meeting at Church headquarters with two members of the Twelve, the subject arose of my having delivered several papers at annual conferences of the Sunstone Foundation — a group of which some of you may still be aware.  It once loomed larger on the Latter-day Saint intellectual landscape than I think it does now, and it was a place where liberal and sometimes downright “fringy” Latter-day Saints tended to congregate.  Often, or so it seemed to me, it was a sort of half-way house on the road out of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I spoke there in those days because I was addressing issues on which I particularly wanted to reach that demographic.  It was the best way that I knew to get to them what I wanted to say.  I even appeared in the pages of Sunstone magazine itself at least a couple of times.

One of the apostles with whom I was speaking was particularly forthright.  Although he is known for having publicly but implicitly criticized the Sunstone conference, he did not tell me not to participate.  He understood what I was trying to do, and he left the question of my continued participation there entirely up to me.

What he said (and the other apostle vocally backed him on it) was more interesting to me than a simple prohibition or request that I stop would have been.

We value FARMS, he told me.  (He was talking, of course, about the old, now sadly departed, Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies.)  We think it makes a real contribution.  But some people, he said, are concerned about it.  They see dangers in it, and worry about whether it will remain loyal to the Church.  And, given your leadership role at FARMS, your very public participation in Sunstone will probably seem, in their minds, anyway, to justify their concerns about you and, derivatively, about FARMS.  So, he suggested, you might want to consider seriously which organization you most value.

Well that wasn’t hard.  I never spoke at Sunstone again.  Despite repeated invitations over the next two or three years from the then head of the Foundation, who was a friend.

I’ve apparently reached a similar position now with regard to the Interpreter Foundation.

I was extremely distressed to learn yesterday that my occasional politically-oriented posts have alienated at least one supporter of Interpreter and possibly, it seems, two or three more.  I regret that more than I can express.

I have been a serious political conservative with libertarian leanings, and a fairly vocal one, since my teenage years.  But I have never confused my politics with my religious beliefs, or the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of this world.  I don’t mingle the two, and I don’t permit my politics – I have never been so much as tempted to permit my politics – to interfere with or to influence the Interpreter Foundation.  To me, they’re entirely distinct things.

And Interpreter is, unambiguously, primary and paramount for me.

So I apologize to any whom I have offended or alienated.  There will be no more political posts here.  Sic et Non won’t even notice that an election is coming up sometime this fall.  Readers of this blog won’t know how or whether I voted.  I’ll try to avoid mentioning so much as the name of the winner for at least a week or two after the votes are counted

This will be difficult for me, but I need to seriously consider what I most value.

Besides, posting on politics here hasn’t done any good; apparently, my language skills aren’t up to the task.  Within the past twenty-four hours, I’ve read online denunciations of me as a Biden-supporting progressive who hates America and as a Trumpist whose ardent support for an amoral president offers yet another window into my similarly amoral soul.  It makes me wonder whether maintaining a blog has any actual value at all.

Posted from Depoe Bay, Oregon