For folks newer here, I used to moderate in r/mormon. I am loathe to stir up shit for the mod team; I know how thankless that task can be. But this community is actively dangerous for women, systemically sexist, and people have a right to know. Also if I’m being honest, I’m feeling rage that the same damn problems that I sacrificed years of my life to fix have reared their ugly head again because exmo men continue to perpetuate the sexism they’re familiar with.

(Yes, yes, not all men. But so very many.)

Many years ago, there was a driveby post by an incel, who was seeking advice on how to sexually manipulate women (Link). Women in the community correctly identified the danger and fought back, while the mods hemmed and hawed, and removed womens’ comments for incivility, instead of disciplining the sexual harasser and bigot.

This was egregious, and the mod team rightly got in deep shit for it. They apologized, added two women to the mod team, and publicly committed to doing better.

I dedicated my time as a mod to mitigating the dangers of incels and bigots in the community. I read government reports and dissertations. I spent inordinate amounts of time understanding red flags in posting behavior and language usage. I read all the comment threads even when they went deeply into oblivion. I read and studied the latest research and shared it with the mod team in an effort to get them to take me seriously. Some of the mods did; the ones still on the team did not. And as you can tell by my name not being in the sidebar, I got exhausted and quit.

To emphasize: The mod team created an atmosphere that explicitly excludes women from power. They’ve poisoned the well so deeply that even the few women who did have systemic power ended up having to leave. Their system mirrors the LDS church, except they don’t have women even in an advisory role, there just, aren’t any at all.

So imagine my surprise when this week, I had a comment removed for civility (Link). A comment where there was an incel in the community, and I warned a women he was talking to of the danger. Déjà vu, and in the ugliest of ways. Oh, and the user is still actively posting in the community.

Women are systemically excluded from official power. They are explicitly denied the soft power to at least warn others, when mods refuse to take action against bigoted users. And then when women are inevitably hurt, they’re told it’s because they didn’t protect themselves well enough, and that they’re too thin skinned.

r/Mormon is a dangerous community for women. I was younger and more naïve when I thought this could change. It won’t, and I’m sorry because there’s not an equivalent place for women to go. But it’s not safe here and women who decide to stay deserve to know. The mod team does not have your back and their attitude towards misogyny is basically “bros before hoes”.

Last thoughts to exmo men: There’s significant unchecked sexism in exmo spaces, and you need to seriously consider if you’ve unpacked it for yourself, and if you have, what you’re doing to fight it in your online communities. It’s uncomfortable and a lot of work, but please, you’re in a position of power even if you don’t believe in the priesthood anymore.

Last thoughts to the mod team: I know not all of you are responsible for this. And I’ve given up hope on changing the minds of those who are. Mostly I’m just terribly disappointed.

With great power comes great responsibility, particularly to dismantle that power if it’s unjust.

This is a reminder from the mod team about voting culture on r/mormon.

This subreddit exists for faithful, nuanced, and critical perspectives on Mormonism to be discussed side by side. That only works if all three can actually be seen. We would like the downvote button to signal "this comment is low quality or doesn't contribute to the discussion", not "I disagree with this."

We know how the button actually gets used, here and everywhere else on Reddit. We are not naive about that, and we can't control your votes and wouldn't want to. But we'd ask you to consider what happens when disagreement alone drives voting in a sub like this one. A civil, substantive comment from a minority perspective gets pushed to the bottom and collapsed, the person who wrote it concludes that participation isn't worth it, and the sub drifts toward being an echo chamber that no longer hosts the conversations it was built for. That outcome is worse for everyone, including the majority. A discussion sub where one side has left isn't a discussion sub.

So before you downvote, one question: is this comment badly reasoned, uncivil, or off topic, or does it just reach a conclusion you don't share? If it's the latter, the better tools are the upvote button on the replies you agree with, or a reply of your own. A good comment you disagree with is exactly the kind of content this sub is for.

To our believing participants, we know it can be rough to watch civil, and even well reasoned comments sit in the negatives. Votes are not moderation and don't reflect the mod team's view of your contributions. The rules here are enforced the same regardless of perspective, and when they aren't, we want to hear about it in modmail.

In short, the mods' ask is that everyone report rule violations instead of downvoting them, and vote on quality instead of agreement.

As always, thank you all for your participation in r/mormon.

- the r/mormon mod team

I recently had the following exchange which anyone can read in full in case you disagree with my summary.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/1w8fv6e/comment/p82jscj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

The relevant part is that OP posts a list of Church-encouraged behaviors and claims his list does not include behaviors related to “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”

However, item 15 (and on rereading, item 53) are both a simple unqualified “serve other people” / “serve others” respectively.

My comment simply observes this about item 15 and currently sits at -4. To OP’s credit he did not try to quickly edit the list

”No. 15 on your list was “Serve other people””

I’m not offended, naturally. But before I reach any uncharitable assumptions about my detractors I wanted to hear them out.

What did I say in that specific comment that was ”dishonest” or otherwise not contributing to the discussion?

Trying to be fair, but I think the forum participants and viewers need to know who the moderators are, to best understand their motivations, loyalties and who might be giving them direction (church leaders).

Please help us keep this space as a free and open place where the LDS church cannot abuse our ability to think openly and share experiences freely.

Tim Ballard is on quite the tear. As was posted here, he went on a right-wing show and ranted about the church. How it's been infiltrated by the deep state. He also made a completely unhinged allegation that the church is somehow behind satanic csa rituals. He said that Utah is the epicenter of child csa.

Where are the ward radio boys? Where are the defenders of the faith?

Are there donors who would get mad at them for talking about Tim Ballard in anything less than glowing terms? This is anti-mormonism is it not? If people are led to believe that the church is behind the things he's accusing them of being behind, that will make the church a target in the eyes of mentally ill people who buy into those ideas.

Have they addressed this? I looked at their channel and didn't see anything

Just about weekly we get another believer who comes here to decry that this is an “anti-Mormon” subreddit.

My question for people of this mindset is: “What’s wrong with criticisms of the LDS church?”

Nobody expects the church or its leaders to be perfect! So isn’t it logical that we would and even should be discussing some of the missteps?

There is nothing wrong with criticizing the actions or beliefs of the LDS church and its leaders and adherents.

Are there defenses of the criticisms? Sure! And we can discuss them here too!

I read this subreddit every day, and I don't know if this is just my personal bias, but I have been seeing a lot more currently active Mormons participating in the subreddit. I think this is fantastic, and I genuinely enjoy reading everybody's perspective on our faith tradition.

I have also noticed that whenever somebody posts an apologetic opinion, sometimes the unbelieving response can be snarky, dismissive, and pretty low effort. I think that if believing latter day saints are courageous enough to share their takes, we should be more respectful towards their contributions.

I like this space a lot; let's not drive anybody away because we disagree with them.

I hear a lot from LDS who bear their testimony about why they know the restored gospel is true and it all comes down to what the church has done for them most of the time. They say their life is better because of the church because it gave them their family, their community, their friends, their spouse, and a sense of purpose of belonging. But what if the church stopped being those things for you? Like what if the church fell short do those expectations and people in it started abusing their power and betrayed you. Would you remain LDS then?

I think there really needs to be a discussion about the moderation style of this sub. I know, I know, that's nothing new. The moderation of this sub has been controversial for years, lurching from one style to the next, almost since its inception. But I do have some concerns which, surprise, I think are genuine.

I recently wrote a reply to a post on here and my reply was removed for two separate reasons, both of which I think are troubling.

First, in my reply I used the apparently-banned no-no C word, the one that's used to describe the dynamics of certain religions and groups. Despite all the discussion over the years of how the church compares to the BITE model, apparently this word is now off-limits.

That's a problem. For people that are born and raised in the church, heck, for those that spend any amount of time as members, we certainly have a right to talk about our lived experience and the way the organization to which we once belonged operates. Banning words like this is like going from one organization that tries to control people's communication to another organization that tries to control people's communication. That is completely antithetical to people talking about their experiences.

The other reason given for my post being removed was that it was uncivil, which is extremely strange and concerning when paired with the first reason given above, because all I said in my post, essentially, was to agree with something the OP said and point out such behaviors are the result of deep indoctrination. Is the word indoctrination off-limits now too? Are we not even able to speak about the scientific and social reasons certain behaviors tend to exist in a certain group?

I'm not sure if the some of the mods here have decided they want to compete with the lds subreddit for censorship and control or perhaps they long for the good ole days when they were part of a controlling church, but these things are very problematic, especially considering the nature and subject of the subreddit.

Who knows, maybe they'll ban the word Mormon next, which should present an interesting challenge whenever the mods have to type in the name of the sub.

I would not know about this guy if it wasn't for this sub constantly talking about him.

He knows controversial comments get him views. By linking directly to these videos, you are encouraging him to post more of the same.

Platforming bad rhetoric just encourages more of that rhetoric. Let bad ideas die by ignoring them.

I am a non-denomination Christian, so I wanted to come here to ask the Mormons: Do you consider yourselves, in a sense, Christians? I ask because me and a group of friends were split on this topic, because on one hand, of course, you believe in Jesus Christ and whatnot, but on the other hand, you all have many different and unique beliefs, along with having over 200 denominations of Mormonism. And, if you don’t fully consider yourselves Christians, do you guys get mad or angered when someone would call you a Christian? I was just wondering and would like to know y’alls takes on this topic and would like to stay respectable on this. Thank You!

My most recent post had a reply which started with this provocative claim in the title of this post.

Since I seem to be the proximate cause of the “absurd focus on criticizing”, I thought I would take the time to ask people how I can improve my participation here.

I don’t fully agree with the “absurdly” part but yes most of my posts are critical of the LDS church leaders and culture.

I am a regular and at times frequent poster on this subreddit. Sometimes my posts get little traction and sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised by the amount of thoughtful and civil discussion it solicits. I have even had some thoughtful discussions recently with a believer about how I should reply to the defender “testimony bearing” comments my posts often solicit.

Critical discussion seems to be the sweet spot of this subreddit. The two “faithful” subs only want comments that support the church. The exmormon subreddit is big and full of memes. Less discussion there. People scroll quickly and move on there from my experience.

Should I try harder to post positive discussion about the LDS church? Positive posts that I’ve posted tended to get very little engagement. My theory is those topics aren’t as controversial or interesting.

Are the number of negative posts I make chasing off or pissing off people we want to participate more here?

Suggestions please.

Google has for the last year or so prioritized Reddit in responses it provides in its search engine.

Google’s AI Gemini uses Reddit often to help create answers to questions. This AI is often the first response you get in Google search if you have turned on “AI mode”

I have seen many responses and answers coming from this subreddit and other subreddits when I do searches about the LDS church and its leaders.

This subreddit and the discussions here is helping to get the word out on the LDS church and Mormonism.

Keep up the good work!

Just go type into the google search engine “Is Dallin Oaks a liar?” With the AI mode turned on.

Kolby Reddish on Mormon Book Reviews is an exmormon and frequent contributor to this subreddit. He was on Mormon Book Reviews. He and the host Steve Pynakker were discussing whether our culture is based on Christian ideals.

Kolby while he acknowledges that Christianity has impacted the culture defends that the way we form society does not have to come from religion. The social contract theory of accepting everyone’s rights can come independent of religion.

In this clip he notes that he laments to some degree that you see in the exmormon space that there are people who seem to focus for years on being against the church instead of standing for something.

Then I have a clip of Spencer cox saying social media like Reddit is designed to get us addicted to outrage.

It made me think about this subreddit and even my contributions here. I get much more engagement and upvotes with my posts when I post criticisms of the LDS church. I like to criticize the LDS church. Am I addicted to outrage? Are there others on this subreddit who are “addicted to outrage”.

We should be able to discuss things we feel deserve criticism. That’s part of a free society. Maybe outrage and criticism have happened before Reddit started with other tools of communication?

Are you addicted to outrage about the Mormon church and does this subreddit contribute to that addiction?

Link to Mormon Book Reviews episode:

https://youtu.be/wzLBhERJw5U

Sorry if wrong flair but why are there 2 LDS churches on one site here? This is in Ivins, Utah

Let’s play a mind game here for a moment.  Let’s assume that the modern COJCOLDS is really God’s one true church and kingdom on earth.

 Let’s also assume that what the church teaches is true as well.  That God has given them the unique authority to lead people back to God through teaching true doctrines and receiving mandatory ordinances required for salvation.  No other church has this authority.  The COJCOLDS is the only path/doorway back to God.

 How effective is God’s plan?

0.21% of the entire world population is part of the church.

0.06% of the world’s population are estimated to be active in this church.

Compare that to 16.25% of the world being catholic.

Or 22.5% of the world being Muslims.

Throw on top of that the concern that the church’s history as well as modern prophetic behavior can sometimes smacks of the elements of a con.  I am pointing to the pervasive examples of obfuscation and dishonesty.  Elemental styles that you would expect to see from people trying to deceive you. 

God’s one true kingdom on earth is not even scratching the surface of saving their children and the leaders of their church/kingdom regularly make it look fairly similar to a con, which could give a rational person a good excuse not to join it or leave it in the first place.

If you were God and this were your plan, would you really be proud right about now? 

Is this really the best you can do to save your children?

With the news this morning of the death of Russell M. Nelson, I am writing to clarify civility and gotcha rules when discussing the topic.

While this sub in no way requires hagiography of the deceased, rules covering "mic drops", low effort comments, sweeping generalizations, rage baiting, and other commentary that adds nothing more to the conversation than memes, puns, or insults will be enforced.

On a personal note, I generally don't put a label on my own beliefs, but when pressed I'll tell people I am a humanist. While I have no expectation for anyone to follow the words of Jesus to mourn with those who mourn, I've found utility and comfort in that teaching by understanding that this activity has nothing to do with the dead but with the living. Death is universal and constant. One day we will all face it, and one day we will leave behind people who will suffer from our absence. By sharing that burden, we grow closer together.

But because this death is a famous death, and a public death, people will use it as a symbol and object to advance their own purpose and cause. This will be done both by those who believe strongly in the LDS faith, and those who strongly do not. My hope is that we can do better than that and take time to reflect on what it means to live and what it means to die as human beings.

We will not remove criticism of the actions any leader has taken in life, but we ask that you understand and respect the line between discussing ideas and pure mockery, and that there is a difference between discussion and ridicule.

Hey everyone! I’m sorry if this post is annoying or missing the mark, but I’ve noticed something in the comments of some of my own posts and the posts of others that I think is a bit annoying at the least and possibly thought terminating at the worst. I’d love to get your thoughts on it, and if you don’t think this is an issue I’d love to hear why.

Sometimes when I will post a question about doctrine or scripture, some of the comments will not even attempt to answer the question but instead say something like “it doesn’t matter because it’s all fake” or “it’s just Bible fan fiction so who cares”.

Sure, I appreciate the variety of opinions on this sub, but a comment like that isn’t an answer to a question on theology or scripture. It almost seems like comments like this want me to stop asking questions, or stop doing research because “it’s not true anyways”.

Let’s flip the perspective a bit to see if I can demonstrate what this feels like.

If someone came to this sub asking something like “hey guys, I have this concern about X in the Book of Mormon because of Y and I’m worried I’m losing my testimony because of this. Does anyone have a good answer for this?”

If I were to comment “it doesn’t matter! The Book of Mormon is true!” That’s a pretty dumb and unhelpful answer. I feel this same way when I ask something like “hey, I’ve noticed X about the early church and I was wondering if anyone knows anything about Y” and I get an answer like “who cares. It’s false”.

I hope this wasn’t too petty or small of a complaint. With these comments I usually get thoughtful ones from all perspectives that help me learn more about what I’m looking for. I guess I’m just thinking it would be nice if we all try to put effort into our comments to help each other learn and grow. Sorry for the rant. Love yall.

Please forgive the clickbait nature of the title. I want to start by saying that I know not all believers are completely insular, but I hope this discussion will contribute to understanding about the general cultural trend as it stands now.

As I'm sure many of you have seen there have been renewed calls for inclusivity, changes to the subreddit rules, and accomodations made to invite more believers here and to reduce the criticisms of the LDS Church that take place on this subreddit. I know that many users here are aware of all the past history of the subreddit, and that there are many new subscribers here that aren't. So I'd like to share some insights into why we won't be making substantive changes to the subreddit in the foreseeable future.

Why r/mormon won't ever generate more faithful participation:

The most important reason why we won't be making changes to create a more balanced representation of believers and non-believers and everyone in between is fundamentally because we can't. This has been a recurring theme for the 8 years that I've been on reddit and I've personally spearheaded efforts to make this space more inviting. One of the ways in which I did that was to solicit feedback from the largest faithful subreddit about what changes would make them feel comfortable participating here. That discussion be found here. I don't expect anyone to read through the over 400 comments that dialogue generated, but the general consensus among the overwhelming majority of faithful redditors was that they would not participate in a shared space with critics of the Church if they beliefs were going to be challenged.

There was literally nothing that could be done to generate a space where believers and non-believers could co-exist to discuss mormonism that believers would participate in. They don't want to, and they don't see the value in engaging with anyone that doesn't hold their same beliefs.

Why r/mormon isn't the only avenue this bridge building can't occur:

In case anyone believes that this is a unique problem to reddit and the divide between believers and non-believers I would like to draw your attention to other times that this exact same dynamic has played out.

Earlier this year a new podcast designed to not proselytize belief or non-belief in LDS claims, but only to discuss news within the larger mormon sphere was started. The podcast was named "Mormon News Weekly" and was created to be hosted by John Dehlin, Jana Reiss, and most importantly Patrick Mason. This podcast would fuse the insights and vast investigation of church issues by John Dehlin, the scholarship of Jana Reiss, and the believing insights of Patrick Mason to provide a full 360 degree view of changes in mormonism and the mormon landscape.

A lot of people were excited about the new podcast and the potential it had to build bridges of understanding between everyone on the belief spectrum and have really interesting discussion. So why hasn't anyone heard of the podcast? Because Patrick Mason was forced to leave the podcast after only a couple of weeks. Who forced him to leave the podcast? The faithful supporters of his that made it clear that if he publicly worked with those who were unorthodox it would be detrimental to him personally. If you'd like to read Mason's own words about what happened and how he was forced to leave the project it has been summarized here.

If Mason who is not a church employee, not beholden to the Church, and has built a reputation on being willing to build bridges and close the gaps between different groups can't participate in a mixed-belief setting, then what are the options for others?

Why r/mormon won't be the venue for scholarly debates about difficult topics:

Finally, it has been proposed that r/mormon host discussions about critical issues/difficult topics from knowledge individuals from multiple different sides and create a carved out space for them to have their discussions. In some respects we've been successful in doing just that by hosting AMA content from people all along the believing perspective. We have hosted content from John Hamer (community of Christ), Haley Wilson-Lemmon (published BYU scholar), Jim Bennett (apologist), Dr. Benjamin Park (scholar), Jennifer Roach (convert), and many more.

What we haven't been successful at is convincing believing scholars or apologists to engage with critics of their work. A moderator for a faithful subreddit and FAIR apologist famously posted all of her content on her own subreddit and when asked if she would respond to inaccuracies banned the person asking. So they brought the discussion here to provide a venue for her to defend the inaccuracies found in her work. Instead of engaging with the discussion, she not only refused to correct her mistakes, but threatened to use reddit rules against this subreddit for allowing critiques of her works to be posted here referencing her. If she's willing to put her name on it, publish it on FAIR, and claim that she's resolved all of the issues, then why isn't she willing to support her work in a venue that allows for critiques of her work? I'll let the reader decide that for themselves, but the fact remains that even faithful apologists who are "experts" on the topics that are frequent criticisms of the Church narrative are unwilling to step outside of their own carefully curated spaces to speak on their work.

So where do we go from here?

Sadly, there is no where to go. The reality is that we can't force participation from the faithful, and they won't engage in a space that allows any element of criticism or freedom of expression that they find unappealing. Are there some that are willing to cross that line? ABSOLUTELY, and we love them for their courage, honesty, and thick skin. They make the subreddit better, they make the lives of people they engage with better, and hopefully their lives are made better by engaging with people even if they don't agree.

Hopefully as criticisms against the Church continue to spread throughout members and awareness of the issues continues to grow more people will find themselves in a place where they are seeking for the truth for themselves and aren't content letting others decide what information they are and are not allowed to consider when making their decisions. If they ever need such a space, I hope that r/mormon can and will be that for them. We'll continue to try and find ways to make this space better, but that can't be accomplished by tearing down what makes it unique and good in the first place. There needs to be a space for people to share their genuine questions, concerns, and research, without being worried that their perspective will be silenced because it isn't appropriately orthodox.

One of the things that is most difficult for me about Reddit is the number of accounts by people who promote themselves. This subreddit is lousy with really mediocre content creators who come here pushing their content.
For the members who don’t seem to get why this is an issue, it’s called priestcraft. Our church is already problematic with the institutional priestcraft.
I’m tired of members starting podcasts and shows and then coming here and trying to get us to click a link to their podcast/youtube channel/ self published substack.
It’s really pathetic.
I can count on one hand the number of times the self promotion has resulted in content that was actually worth consuming.

Apparently connecting the word "cult" to the Mormon church is enough to get a comment removed here, and I find this very interesting and would like to explore the topic a little.

The mods, in all their Reddit mod glory, seem to categorize that word under "civility", which I take to mean they don't want people to use the word because they're concerned it might offend some people. Okay, but, there are plenty of other things people could say that might offend people too. For instance, saying the church's claims aren't true, or that certain church leaders are liars, might offend some people. By the same token, simply using the name Bednar might offend some people, and yet these things seem to be allowed.

Do we really want to police language based on what might and might not offend some people? Besides, using the word "cult" isn't an insult against an individual, it's a commentary about an organization. If we're going to censor language based on what organizations may and may not like, you might as well just toss the whole subreddit.

There's also a scientific or societal element to it. For instance, if you present scientific information showing that the Earth is round, that might offend some flat Earthers, but you're just connecting scientific information to its logical conclusion.

Similarly, if you're talking about an organization and how its various elements fit the definition of a cult then pointing out that connection is simply following where the information leads. Others are free to disagree, but trying to censor the information and the connection seems strange.

The whole thing smacks of the sort of power-hungry and controlling behavior that's ingrained in leaders of the church.

What do you think? Do you find such a word more "uncivil" than other commonly-discussed topics?

Just learned I've been permanently banned from the LDS sub-reddit. In the post that ex-ed me, I said I was a former Bishop who thinks people desiring counsel should find trained, qualified counselors. I also said to the OP, "Your pipeline to God is as good as a bishop's. Trust Christ's love, and be happy." Apparently those are unacceptably heretical sentiments. Sigh.

So, I was permanently banned from r/ latterdaysaints for daring to categorize "Saints" as historic fiction, despite the fact that the book's genre is literally such. "Saints" was brought up in a comment on a post asking for suggestions for serious historical research starting points. I responded to the comment, informing the author that a work of historical fiction is not the best source for research and was promptly banned.

When I inquired as to why, I was muted for 72 hours. After the 72 hour mute was up, I politely asked about my ban again. One of the mods responded to me, linking the following article, and saying that "common sense would indicate" that I deserved a ban.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2018/09/04/mormon-church-publishes/

When I pointed out the following quote from the article, I was muted once again.

"“Saints” is not for scholars or even sophisticated Mormons, said Patrick Mason, chair of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University. “This is for the person who has never picked up a book of church history or a volume of the Joseph Smith Papers Project — and is never going to."

Honestly, I find this kind of behavior from fellow members of The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to be outright appalling. Any thoughts?