Religious dialogue now much more open, thanks (or not) to the Internet

By Jen Beasley

December 10, 2007 | When a rebuttal to a speech given at October's Latter-day Saints General Conference was posted to the Internet mid-November, it sparked conversation in its best light, fire and brimstone in its worst, and highlighted the way in which the Internet is changing the landscape of American religious dialogue.

The speech, entitled Mothers Who Know, was given by Relief Society President Julie B. Beck. In her speech, she lauded the virtue of motherhood and said "Latter-day Saint women should be the very best in the world at upholding, nurturing, and protecting families."

But she also equated nurturing children with homemaking, and encouraged women to "do less" outside the home, suggestions that sparked disagreement and a rebuttal entitled What Women Know, a manifesto of counterpoints signed by nearly 550 people. The rebuttal argued the importance of the role of the father in childrearing, the right or need of mothers to work, and the natural growth of parenting skills with each child.

Annette Grove said she was moved to sign the petition because she felt Beck's speech gave a very narrow definition of motherhood.

"I think it's the ongoing insistence to having a very narrowly defined role for women that tends to exceed most of the women on the planet. It's very confining to me why that narrowly defined role is continually harangued," Grove said.

Margaret Dehlin, a signer of the online petition from Logan, said adding her name was a chance to add her voice.

"I read it and it resonated with my heart, with what I felt. I feel especially that in this day and age, what we give our time to and our money and our name to, it's like a vote," Dehlin said. "I just want to support more open spaces in the LDS Chuch, more room for diversity."

"What I didn't sign it for in any way was to attack Julie Beck," Dehlin said.

Regardless, the media coverage of the petition did result in attacks, as news forums for the Logan Herald Journal and The Salt Lake Tribune blew up in dissension between supporters of the petition and supporters of Beck.

Scott L. Thumman, an expert on religion and the Internet at The Hartford Institute for Religion Research, said it has become more common on the Internet for religious discussion to stray from orthodoxy than it once was in the whispers of chapels gone by.

"I don't want to say the nature of church is about control, but it is a very hierarchical structure and what can be said about the Internet is that it is egalitarian," Thumman said. "I certainly think there becomes less censorship. The church can't very well control what's on the Internet."

Thumman added that efforts to control the official church message, such as were undertaken by the LDS Church in centralizing all ward and stake websites into the central church site, have backfired in a sense.

"What that left was then you would do a search and instead of finding a lot of positive sites and a lot of negative sites, you'd instead find one official site and then a lot of negative sites," Thumman said. "They diminished the voices for good for the LDS Church and augmented the negative voices."

Still, Thumman said, as the Internet gained in popularity, the balance of voices began to return as well.

"Now with the advent of blogs and forums and that sort of thing, it is possible to get more voices out there for good, but it is an uncontrolled medium," Thumman said.

Many such forums seized on the recent speech controversy in defense of Beck. On the Messenger and Advocate site, Guy Murray posted a rebuttal to the rebuttal in picture form, offering up a photo of LDS believers in Ghana as an example of a reason not to make excuses.

"These are the people who actually haul water and fuel on a daily basis (usually on their heads)," Murray wrote. "They don't sit smugly in the comfortable confines of their Wasatch Front mansions pontificating on 'outward appearances' and the 'struggle of poverty.' No. These are the Saints who actually live it day in and day out -- and who clearly are not obsessed about that which has little or no import beyond their daily struggle just to live. Yet, somehow each and every photo of these Saints I have seen shows clean, well groomed, and very happy people."

And beyond the shout-typing, some civil conversation and dialogue did arise.

"While I had an overall positive reaction to this statement, I realize that others may question the appropriateness of a public signed response that in certain places directly disagrees with a general Church leader," wrote Caroline on the Exponent II blog. "What are your feelings about this? And what parts of the statement resonate/do not resonate with you?"

Elsewhere on the same blog, sociologist Armand Mauss typed a guest posting with a measured outlook on the controversy.

"Sister Beck's talk, and the response to it that was circulated to us ("What Women Know"), simply present us a case in which BOTH parties are in GENERAL agreement, but the one party (Sister Beck, representing the Church leadership) is emphasizing ONE important aspect of a woman's life (motherhood), while the other party (the sisters signing the circulated statement) are emphasizing OTHER important aspects. I doubt that either party would dismiss the concerns of the others as unimportant."

Mauss goes on to write, "All in all, then, it appears... that Sister Beck and the sisters who circulated that statement ("What Women Know") are not disagreeing with each other so much as talking past each other."

Thumman pointed out that whether for dissenting or affirming voices, the Internet has expanded the opportunities for discussion in many religious communities.

"I do think in many ways the uncontrolled nature of the Web allows a platform for discussion that they wouldn't have before," Thumman said.

And for Grove, that was what she was looking for.

"I think that it's important that there's some discussion," Grove said. "I think a lot of times in the LDS Church the discussion gets set away and I don't know how that happens."

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