Love OR The Law: A False Choice

Introduction

This post is an exploration of the tension that exists between the two seemingly contradictory commandments, (a) Love thy neighbor as they self, and (b) sustain Church doctrine, officers, and policies. As Buddhists (and Stephen Covey) say, there is a "middle way" to the Christian dilemma of feeling like one must either love their neighbor or support the Church.

Three Contemporary Examples of The "Love-Law" Paradox

These three stories illustrate real-life struggles of people whom I know. When I hear emotionally-charged stories like these, my knee-jerk reaction is to hide from the controversial issue.

(a) "The Church or My Sons"

An LDS mother had two gay sons. After a few years of wrestling with supporting her sons' lifestyles while still supporting the teachings of the Church, she ultimately left the Church. While she claimed to have a number of other faith-based concerns, it seemed like her main concern stemmed from this one issue, and what she perceived as poor counsel from priesthood leaders and the callous response she felt from the rest of the Church members. At the end of the day, she tragically felt like she couldn't enjoy truly loving relationships with her sons as an active member of the Church. For her, love/tolerance > Church membership. For her, the middle way disappeared.

(b) Supporting Prop 8

In 2008, the LDS Church threw millions of dollars of resources and urged affected Church members to organize and defend Proposition 8, which supported the standing definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. An LDS Californian man's bishop called him to go register old folks to vote in assisted living centers with the hidden agenda of encouraging them to vote for Prop 8 at the end of the process. He didn't feel comfortable doing that. He later said, “I didn’t want to participate, but when you’re told by a prophet this is what you should do, it takes away choice a little bit.” Ultimately, the Californian member of the Church avoided his cognitive dissonance by choosing not to campaign or vote. When faced with conflict, he felt trapped by a false dichotomy: "I can either love those who have different values than me, or I can disagree with them. There is no middle ground."

(c) The Social Media Crusader

Once there was an LDS Church member who said some pretty hateful things about a new, freeway billboard supporting the LGBT+ community on his personal facebook page. He spoke out because felt like his beliefs were under attack, and he reacted defensively. He valued "standing up for his beliefs" over "whatever anyone else thinks."

The Paradox

The Adversary is working hard to convince me that I cannot truly love my neighbors (who don't live God's commandments the same way I do) and still remain a stalwart member of the Church. Satan would trick me into believing that ultimately, I'll have to pick either love or the law.

On the topic of same-sex attraction, I have lots of beliefs happening at once in my mind, which I'm just beginning to explicitly examine:

LAW

• Belief: The 1995 Proclamation to the World on the Family includes the Lord’s standards and doctrine concerning the family. (E.g., "…marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.")
• Belief: When we act against the doctrine of God, we sin, which separates us from God.
• Belief: Gay marriage is an instance of sin.
• Belief: Those who choose to marry others of the sex aren't bad people because of their choice; they are just using their agency in a way that keeps them from enjoying the full companionship of the Holy Ghost (spiritual death).

LOVE

• Belief: As children of Heavenly Parents, we are all spiritual siblings.
• Belief: All people sin. (E.g., I choose to sin differently than gay couples.)
• Belief: As we all feel our way through this life, all of us are equally deserving of love, compassion, and unconditional regard.

Despite what Satan would have me believe, I can both show support for gay couples while not condoning some of their behavior. I'm just not great yet at living within that tension. It would be nice to be able to define that line of what's okay and what's not okay for me and for others, but paradoxes are never simple to navagate. I see so many people, too uncomfortable with the tension, picking sides; I don't want that to happen to me. Even if I never find a solution, I will continue to wrestle within the tension between these two principles.

"Love or the Law" is a False Dichotomy

I fear these types of stories are all too common among LDS disciples. Tolerance seems to be an especially tender string that the Adversary loves to tug. He wants us to feel like we must choose between our relationships and our beliefs. In philosophical terms, this is a popular logical fallacy referred to as a false dichotomy or dilemma.

In this case, the fallacious argument is that "a person is either with God or against him." As Obi-Wan Kenobi so eloquently put it in Star Wars Episode III, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes!” (Yes, I recognize the irony of that statement coming from a Jedi.)

A Middle Way

Is it possible to truly love and respect others while sustaining seemingly-discriminatory Church policies?

I found the following 3-minute video featured on the mormonandgay.org website. In it, Elder Oaks expounds on the tension that is commonly felt by Latter-day Saints regarding loving and supporting those who act on their same-sex attraction. While he, unfortunately, doesn't offer any concrete examples, he does teach the principle that we can both live our personal beliefs while loving and respecting others.

As I think more about it, it seems like this is not so much a doctrinal problem; it's a skills problem. The doctrine is general but clear. Perhaps due to our own history of victimization, it's us, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who are not well-practiced at welcoming those with different ways of life while respecting their agency. Now, I don't claim to have the answers for resolving this paradox. But until I do, I'd like to take a stab at addressing some practical principles that might lead us in the direction of peace and inclusion.

As Church members, we need a crash course on civility. Here are five things we could do to better love others while honoring God's laws ourselves. (Hint: Most of it happens before our encounters with others.)

1. Define your beliefs.
2. Seek revelation from God.
3. Start with heart.
4. Find the Middle Way.
5. Practice civility.

1. Define Your Beliefs

It's much easier to enter into a controversial conversation if you've established what it is you believe beforehand. In the heat of the moment, it's so easy to be reactionary. Clarifying your thoughts beforehand allows you to really listen to others as you don't feel the need to think about your response while they're talking. Careful listening to others leads them to feel heard and understood, which is a critical element for maintaining meaningful dialogue.

2. Seek Revelation

God loves all His children. If you can tap into the love God has for others, you can discover the best ways to approach each unique situation. God knows the way forward. He can and will teach you, individually, if you seek Him.

3. Lead Crucial Conversations With My Heart

(I borrowed this principle from the book, Crucial Conversations.) Before entering into dialogue, you must question your motives for doing so. Once you have firmly established (a) what you believe (b) and see your fellow sinners as a children of God, you can begin to approach conversations with a less selfish focus, and a desire for greater understanding.

Begin every crucial conversation—not with the goal of winning an argument, but with a desire to explore someone else's path and, with them, co-create a shared pool of meaning.

There are at least two ways in which we don't start with heart: One is by telling your interlocuter that their options are crazy, stupid, worthless, and the like. The other is by assuming that what we think must be what they think as well. When we enter dialogue with these toxic mentalities, we show disrespect to others on account of what they think. Respecting others' opinions doesn't mean being untrue to our own. It simply requires us to recognize that others are entitled to look at the world differently and when they share their views with us they can expect a fair hearing.

"Arguing" need not be a fight; rather, for it to be effective, it must be a safe space. There is no need to attack or defend. It’s just presenting your true self and respecting others' God-given right to be themselves. When you start with heart, or in other words, with a desire to not harm the other person, but to understand them and hopefully arrive at a mutually beneficial outcome. If conflicts arise, it's because—somehow—the conversation has gotten away from this vision of success and become unsafe for one or more of the participants.

4. Find a Middle Way

Fable: Two businesspeople argued over which one of them could buy an orange. Each businessperson put forth stirring arguments. But eventually the person with the greater resources ended up with it leaving the other businessperson with nothing but hard feelings. Little did they know that one only wanted the peel and the other only wanted the fruit inside.  Had they taken the time to discover what the other wanted, they could have both been happy.

• Avoid the "Sucker's Choice."
• Don’t limit yourself to "either/or" choices. 
• Be on the lookout to see if you're telling yourself that you must choose between two things (e.g., peace and honesty, winning and losing, etc.)
• Search for the "and" option.
• Instead, raise the bar and go for the "and" solutions.
• Clarify what you don’t want, add it to what you do want, and ask your brain to start searching for healthy options to bring you to dialogue.

5. Practice Civility

• Qualifying your arguments is a good technique to soften the blow and still help others feel respected when you respectfully disagree with others:
• Save the core of their argument — "Yes, I agree that what you say may be true in general, but there are circumstances when…"
• Recognize that although you don't agree, what you hear is not unreasonable (it's understandable that they might feel that way) — "Indeed, that idea can be appealing, however…"
• Allow that if you knew more, your opinion might change — "I don't know, it doesn't seem right, but perhaps there is more here than meets the eye."
• Make generous use of the metaphor of perspective —"Yes, but if you look at it from a different point of view…"

• Never correct others.
• Use "I feel" statements. 
• State/live your beliefs. Set an example of integrity. (But don't do it self-righteously. I must always consider how others feel as fellow participants in the conversation/relationship.)
• Create space for disagreement by presenting your opinions as just opinions. After sharing an opinion, you might ask, "what do you think?" as a way to show that you value and respect their opinion and are open to respectful dialogue.
  

Conclusion

People will feel how they choose to feel. (Feeling a decisive response to internal mood and external stimulus.) I believe that Church members are responsible for treating everyone with love and respect. This "love and respect" may look different in various situations. For example, how I choose to respond to a gay couple moving into a home next door (whom I would welcome into my home with open arms) would be VERY different than my reaction to having a residence for convicted sex offenders developed in my neighborhood. (I'm not that Christlike yet.) 

At the end of the day, I'm still struggling with the tension. But I'm happily struggling with it. I don't want to swing dogmatically to the law, or morally relativistically to love. As I continue to engage with this issue with love and respect in my heart along with a desire for the Truth, I am confident that God will teach me how He wants me to behave. The trick will be to avoid black and white thinking.