A few weeks ago, my daughter and I were out of state at a climbing competition, and an old high school friend was kind enough to let us stay with her and her family. My friend is a Presbyterian pastor, so that Sunday we went to her church. She wasn’t preaching that particular day, but she still participated in the service.

Part of the services involved standing and greeting the people around you. My friend introduced this part and said that, in light of coronavirus[fn1] and flu season[2], instead of shaking hands, we could fist bump, tap elbows, or give the peace sign. Everybody laughed, then stood and gave fist bumps or the peace sign.

As the coronavirus shows signs of become a pandemic, it seems like we should start thinking about changes we need to make in our worship service. And it seems to me that the sacrament is a big place where we should seriously consider change. And I’m not talking just those who break the bread. The new handbook explicitly tells “[t]hose who prepare, bless, or pass the sacrament first wash their hands with soap or other cleanser.”

Even assuming they do it, the people preparing, administering, and passing the sacrament aren’t the only (and probably aren’t the primary) germ vector we deal with. I mean, while my kids are getting older, they were little once. Even if you’re fully awake and fully aware, there’s almost no way to prevent little fingers from touching several chunks of bread before choosing the one they take. The most careful adult fingers can still brush other chunks of bread. And there’s no concomitant requirement that those of us in the congregation wash our hands before participating in the Sacrament.

The good news: there’s precedent both to changing the form of the sacrament and to using a health scare to motivate that change. I’m not going to go deeply into our history of the sacrament, in part because of space and time constraints and in part because others (especially Justin Bray) have done an excellent job with it.[fn3] But the broad strokes of what we’ve done:

In its earliest LDS iteration, the sacrament was offered irregularly, and could often constitute an actual meal.

Even after it was no longer a meal, Mormonism followed its Christian peers in drinking the wine (then water) from a communal cup. That communal cup could lead to absolutely disgusting results (and, if you’re currently eating, maybe skip the following blockquote, from one of Bray’s articles):

the front rows of the meetinghouse were the most coveted seats in the 19th century because by the time the cup reached the back of the room and into the gallery, some reported that it contained all kinds of debris, hair, and foul smells. You can imagine the look of horror on Williams’s face when the older man next to her, in her words, “took a sip and his red mustache was floating on top of the water.” Though feeling a bit squeamish, Williams dutifully took her turn and renewed her baptismal covenants. “I have always been delicate in my stomach,” she later wrote. “That day was no exception. It rolled completely over.”

Still, many members considered drinking from a communal cup a critical part of the sacrament (and some apparently also believed that blessing the water also sterilized the cup). As we moved into the Progressive Era, though, and as we started accepting the germ theory of disease, Christian churches started moving away from a common cup. In 1912, the First Presidency told wards to move to individual cups, a mandate that was sped up six years later because of the Spanish flu.

So for the last century, we’ve used separate cups for the sacrament, in spite of New Testament precedent that indicates that when Jesus gave His disciples wine during the Last Supper, they shared a single cup.

How can we make the bread part of the sacrament more sanitary? I have a couple ideas, of varying degrees of radicalness, but in the end, I’m a tax attorney, not a public health expert. So if you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them in the comments.

First, and absolutely not radically, we should ensure that those dealing with the sacrament bread are not sick. There’s nothing embarrassing about sitting it out when you’ve got a sniffle (or, even, staying home, both to recover and to protect your fellow Saints from your illness). Also, we should ensure that those who prepare, administer, and pass the sacrament are aware that they’re supposed to wash their hands in advance, and that they do, in fact, wash their hands with soap and water. Perhaps we even ask them to tear the bread wearing food service gloves.[fn4]

Of course, while that’s helpful, it doesn’t do anything about the grubby kid- (and adult-) fingers in the congregation. How do we solve that problem?

One way might be to emphasize that there’s no shame in not taking the sacrament every week. Again, if you’re sick, don’t go to church. But if you go to church anyway, maybe skip the sacrament that week? In the early church, after all, sacrament was administered when it was convenient, and it wasn’t convenient every week. I know there’s currently a stigma against not taking it, because you only don’t take it if you sinned or whatever, but what if we acknowledged publicly that there are other legit reasons not to take it? And being sick was a big one?

We can get more radical, of course: when I attend Catholic mass, the congregants walk to the front, where they receive the Eucharist from the priest or others who have been deputized to distribute Communion. It would be a different feel, but we could have members go to the front to receive the sacrament from young men and young women,[fn5] rather than having the young men come to the congregations. Those handing out the bread would clearly wash their hands first, and maybe would wear gloves, which would pretty much ensure the sanitary nature of it.

We can even take it a step more radical: we could shift the idea of the Lord’s Supper from being literal to being figurative. We’ve already done that to some extent—instead of an actual meal, we take a sliver of bread and a sip of water to represent the meal. We could make it even more symbolic, and participate in the sacrament without actually using bread and water.

Full disclosure: I’m not a big fan of this option: there’s a critical materiality and physicality to Mormonism that I don’t entirely want to leave behind. On the other hand, though, this solution would undoubtedly be the most sanitary and the least likely to transmit coronavirus, influenza, of any other disease through the sacrament.

I don’t know precisely what the best answer is, but it’s a question that will, I suspect, become more and more critical in the upcoming weeks and months. In the meantime, [peace sign].

[fn1] She was joking about coronavirus; at the time, there were either one or two reported cases in the U.S., both in Chicago, and we weren’t in Chicago.

[fn2] She was deadly serious about the flu. The flu is no laughing matter.

[fn3] The best online treatment I ran into was this one from Bray. He also wrote about the development of the LDS sacrament here. I also enjoyed this piece from Chad Nielson.

[fn4] My kids and I volunteered at Food for Friends this last Saturday. It’s an amazing organization that prepares meals for those who need meals, and provides table service of those meals to recognize the individuals’ dignity. And when we dealt with food, served food, or brought food, we were required to wear gloves.

[fn5] Side note: on Sunday, none of the three active young men (two of whom are priests anyway) were at church. So we had adult men blessing and passing the sacrament, in spite of having three young women sitting in the congregation. So I’m honestly really not sympathetic to the argument that letting girls pass the sacrament would take something away from boys, unless somehow you believe that letting girls do something devalues that thing.

Photo: Edison kinetoscopic record of a sneeze, January 7, 1894. Public domain.

Last May I had an extended business trip that took me to the West Coast for twelve days (Los Angeles, then San Francisco, then Anchorage, then Seattle). While on business, I did what I always do: I looked up my friends in each city, individually texted them, and then scheduled every hour of free time as meals and visits to catch up.  I shaved two or so hours off of my sleep schedule each day so I could pack in catching up with more friends.

I love people.  One of my most persistent complaints is that there is not enough time in life to be best friends with everyone I think is amazing.

For my own curiosity on my flight back to D.C., I counted the number of friends I had “meaningfully” interacted with in that twelve day period. I defined “meaningful” as “engaged in conversation for at least one hour while hanging out in a group of four or fewer.”  The answer was forty-seven.

Notable among that forty-seven is who I didn’t count.  The hundred people I gave hugs to while visiting my old ward in the Bay Area didn’t count. The three dozen colleagues/opponents I interacted with in meetings and depositions didn’t count.  The passengers on my flights, trains, and buses didn’t count.  The servers and fellow customers at restaurants didn’t count.  The temple workers at the Saturday morning session I attended in Seattle didn’t count, nor did the woman who I hitchhiked a car ride with up to the lodge atop Mount Rainier.

If you changed my metric from the 47 friends I “hung out with for an hour” to “everyone I touched, shook hands with, hugged, or breathed within six feet of” during that twelve day stretch, it’s easily 500 people.  If you extend my breathing radius to anyone in the same enclosed spaces, its easily more than 2000.

I’m a woman in my early 30s.  I’m healthy.  I tend to shrug off and work through common colds.  I’m religious.  And I’m extremely social.  In other words, my life looks like Korean COVID-19 patient #31.

Prior to this woman, every case in Korea could be traced to a cluster of people who had returned from Wuhan, China and their immediate family.  But this woman, first in the days before she showed symptoms and then in the days after when her symptoms were mild, attended church and ate at restaurant buffets.  She interacted with more than 1200 people.  Those interactions quickly ballooned into more than 2500 confirmed cases stemming from her social network alone.  Approximately half of all coronavirus cases in Korea trace to her social life as a proximate cause of the spread.

The only way the world is going to beat this terrifying virus is if people like me stay home.

The Washington Post has an incredible interactive graphic modeling this power of social distancing today.  Social distancing is more effective than mandatory travel bans and geographic quarantines.  Fewer total people will get sick, and those who do get sick will be spread across a greater length of time.  It gives our health care systems a fighting chance.

As recently as a week ago, my reaction to COVID-19 was to avoid older people, and urge older relatives not to travel, but not to change my patterns at all.  I still went to church.  I still rode the metro to work.  I was still planning on flying to California for a business trip.  I had still set up a pi day party for D.C. friends and an Indian food girls nights for S.F. friends.   I was supposed to board a plane for that trip an hour ago.

But then last week I read a blog post from an emergency room doctor in Milan.  (I don’t remember the exact one, but it was similar to this one.)  Next I read an engineer post reminding everyone of exactly what exponential growth mathematically looks like.  Then I started hearing reports from medical professionals in the United States that we have been so atrociously terrible at testing that the virus is –already– everywhere.  There has likely already been a week of exponential, asymptomatic community spread in every major urban area, and those cases are going to explode into public health crises within days.

When I woke up on Thursday with a tickle in my throat almost certainly attributable to cherry blossoms blooming and allergy season beginning, I realized I had already been acting like Korean Patient 31.  That day, I went to my office, packed up my work binders, and decided to work from home for the foreseeable future.

I resolved to skip both Latter-day Saint and Catholic services, and felt guilty about it — until twelve hours later when both churches cancelled services of their own accord.

I cancelled my pi day party.

I cancelled my business trip to California.

I cancelled the next four trips I had planned to four separate states through May 1.

And then I watched as people in my social network decided to not take this seriously.  They’re claiming coronavirus is a hoax, an overreaction, a political attack, a sign of the times.  (World Health Org myth busting info is here.)  They’re booking cheap travel and pointedly shaking hands as a way to “own the Libs.”  So this is my plea to all of you:  health is not political.  Please take this seriously.  Maybe you’re like me and you and your friends are generally young and healthy.  To you, COVID-19 will be nothing more than a bad cold.  But this isn’t about you.  It’s about the immuno-compromised and elderly who you interact with.  It’s about the total resources of our medical system.  It’s about buying time.

We all need to start socially isolating in order to stop hospitals from being overwhelmed.

There is something so pernicious about infectious diseases which capitalize on humanity’s compassion.  Part of me feels selfish and guilty for isolating myself in my comfy house with wifi and Netflix.  Isolation goes against my every social instinct.  It goes against every scriptural passage and general conference story which emphasizes building close-knit communities and being physically present in caring for other members of the body of Christ.  Physical presence, right now, can accidentally kill.  So I’m trying to channel my social fervor into calls, texts, and small acts of remote financial assistance.

I take some meager comfort in knowing this is not the first time humanity has faced this theological crisis, where isolation is a purer act of neighborly love than visiting the poor, the imprisoned, the sick, and the widows in their affliction.  Throughout the European plagues of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, theologians struggled with the same questions.  From one early modern sermon:

“I leave the proving of the Plagues infection to the Physician; he will tell you … that it is spreading, and so spreading, that where it once breaks forth, a man cannot be too careful, because he can never be too secure, if secure enough. For to say that the Plague befalls none but such as want faith to rely upon and trust in the Providence of God is an error more bloody than to say that it is not infectious.”

It is error, my friends, to think you are unaffected — and thereby affect others.  Please, listen to the public health experts.  If you won’t listen to the public health experts, listen to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints listening to the public health experts.  Start social distancing, now, and don’t laugh COVID-19 off as a joke or hoax.

For everyone in critical medical service and food service industries, I’m praying for your health and grateful for your heroism.  For everyone who is immuno-compromised or elderly, I’m praying for enough social isolation to spare you from sickness and premature death.  For everyone already ill, I’m praying for effective treatments and speedy recoveries.  For everyone who is financially unstable, I’m praying for compassionate leaders and neighbors to ensure your stability as we careen into a recession.  For everyone who has tumultuous home lives, I’m praying for peace during this time of turmoil.  For everyone who is healthy, including for myself, I’m praying for the humility to listen to public health experts and understand how hyper-sociality can have ripple effects which devastate your communities and wreak havoc on the world.

Stay safe, my friends.

*Photo by Pablo García Saldaña on Unsplash

Today’s guest post is courtesy of Rachel H. DeMeester, MPH, a public health expert and Latter-day Saint living in the Seattle area.

Living in Washington state and being a public health professional, Covid-19 is on my mind almost constantly, but really, there are few places it hasn’t touched. Public health’s greatest challenge is giving recommendations that don’t induce panic but also aren’t ignored. That clearly has failed so far as people hoard toilet paper (irrational) and masks (ineffective since healthcare workers need them) and in many cases ignore pleas to spread out. Do we know everything we need to know about the virus? No. Do we know enough to act? Absolutely. No matter how independent we feel we are, we all have some level of social contact and therefore a personal stake and responsibility in Covid-19. Those who believe in God receive an extra reminder that we are all God’s children and are expected to care for each other as such. We should be concerned—not panicked—enough to act.

If I had thirty seconds to describe the Covid-19 situation, I would say:

• The main goal is to slow down its spread to avoid overwhelming our medical system beyond capacity and to reduce its impact on people. This requires doing things differently than we are used to.
• There are no steps yet that will perfectly balance economic impact, loss of life, healthcare capacity, and individual freedom at the same time. We should try anyway.
• Recommendations may change rapidly. Critical thinking is important, but most of us aren’t sitting at home studying the virus or modeling how the disease spreads. It would be wise to listen to those who do.

What’s different about this pandemic? It’s not the first one the world has ever encountered.

Maybe the disease isn’t so different, but the world’s incredible interconnectedness exacerbates a pandemic. As in prior pandemics, we have no existing immunity to slow the virus down; that will change slowly as people recover and a vaccine is developed. Features of the virus itself combined with a highly mobile society make the speed of transmission concerning.

• The novel coronavirus can be transmitted before people have noticeable symptoms.
• After you get it, you might not show symptoms for up to five days (the “incubation period”). Think about how many people you normally interact with in a work week!
• The virus can live on surfaces for a few hours or up to nine days. To compare, common cold and flu viruses typically remain infectious for less than 24 hours—and we still suggest hand washing and disinfecting.
• The virus may or may not be seasonal. While it’s too soon to say, we do know it can still spread in hot, humid environments, so delaying action in the hopes that warmer weather will save us would be under-reacting.

Fast transmission affects more people and could strain the healthcare system past capacity, decreasing recovery rates. Even if we personally aren’t at high risk, do we care about the risk to our friends and neighbors?

Why panic when HIV/flu/car accidents have killed way more people? Why don’t we do something about that?

I relate to the skeptics, but first, there are interventions to try to address those issues. (Level of funding is a different story.) Second, we aren’t sure yet how bad Covid-19 is going to be, but almost certainly worse than the seasonal flu that we’re used to. Third, any previous lack of action is a bad justification for continuing lack of action.

What’s the big deal? The recovery rate looks pretty good to me.

The recovery rate is fairly high, but it may not stay that way. Currently, recovery is high overall but not for certain populations (elderly or certain conditions), and more interestingly, not everywhere. Recovery will decline if healthcare systems become overwhelmed by continued exponential spread of Covid-19.

• Healthcare capacity affects outcomes. My favorite analogy compares this to what would happen if a family got sick; if everyone gets sick at the same time, especially the parents, it’s much harder to deal with than if one person at a time gets sick. That is why “flattening the curve”—or slowing down transmission—is important. The US has 95,000 ICU beds (the kind needed for severe Covid-19), many of which are occupied already. About 20% of Covid-19 cases are sick enough to require hospital care. We need masks, hand sanitizer, and healthy staff to provide care. Washington state has already had to receive federal shipments of masks to keep up with demand. The WA department of health is also issuing emergency licenses to healthcare providers from other states to help us out.

• Fatality rates vary widely between countries. Italy’s current fatality rate is 8.3% and seems to be rising. Germany’s is 0.2%. Ours is 1.4%. (Check out this map by the World Health Organization.) There are many possible explanations, including population age, population density, testing availability, level of coordinated response, and social customs, but one thing is certain: we are not guaranteed a low fatality rate without effort.

That effort for individuals is mostly “social distancing.” We also desperately need to do more testing and “contact tracing,” as in South Korea where they are actively finding people who have been exposed, testing them, and containing the disease. In the US, we’re still only testing people that self-report and meet a list of criteria.

Source.

If you’re still on the fence about social distancing, watch this fascinating simulation. The level and duration of social distancing may not be the same in every community or country, but in the US all fifty states have confirmed cases, so be prepared.

Since everything is canceled, let’s get together for a playdate/homeschool co-op/etc.

When my kids’ preschool was canceled last week, I left chatting with a friend about getting together to make sure we didn’t lose our sanity. I have changed my opinion as cases continue to rise. In order for the virus to really slow down, pushing the limits of recommended group size doesn’t make sense. I don’t want to be alone for weeks, but my spouse works with the elderly; if we can prevent the virus from coming through our house, we can keep them served and safe. If rates start dropping here, I’ll reassess. Dr. Darria Long Gillespie (American College of Emergency Physicians spokesperson) suggests asking oneself: “How many people will be there? How close will you be to all of those people? How well ventilated is the space or how much people can move around?”

So if everyone stays home for two weeks will this go away?

Theoretically, sure. But since one host can infect multiple people, it would have to be 100% to stop the virus. That’s pretty unlikely. Even if everyone stayed home, the 14-day incubation period is an estimate; there’s a possibility that 14 days might not be long enough. The best bet IS to take some space, paying attention to your area’s risk of transmission.

If this goes on too long, won’t the economic effects cause worse health effects than the disease?

I don’t know how long we have before the societal cost of social distancing outweighs the benefit. Food insecurity, medical bankruptcy, domestic violence, and mental illness are already widespread and likely to get worse. For individuals living in compromised situations, actual harm due to social distancing may already outweigh potential harm; we need more information. Food and money are easily shared without contact, but I urge us to consider anyone in our network who may need a “buddy home” at which to spend time. I think this small increased risk of transmission is worth keeping people safe in their homes. (See domestic violence and suicide resources at the end of this page.)

How long will this last? A recent model from the Imperial College London predicts several months followed by a second peak later in the year unless containment measures continue until a vaccine is available in 12-18 months (summary and full report). That’s scary. But they also modeled an “on/off” method of social distancing and school closures. In it, Covid-19 cases would be closely monitored and social distancing/school closures implemented only when ICU cases pass a certain (manageable) threshold. This would result in the more disruptive measures being “on” about 2/3rds of the time, with some respite in between. That might be a nightmare to coordinate at even a state level, but it could help mitigate the impact to other health and financial outcomes.

(Graph from Page 12)

Stay compassionate.

A final note about equity during this pandemic. Most of my professional life has been spent targeting vulnerable populations and working to reduce disparities in the health care system. There are going to be differences in people’s ability to distance. Someone with a well-paying desk job is going to have a different experience than someone who must physically show up to work either by function or by risk of not being able to pay their rent. When someone orders groceries, someone delivers them. When grandma gets sick, someone cares for her and cleans the hospital. In all of this, let us be gracious and not use someone else’s extenuating circumstances to justify any unwillingness on our part to act responsibly. Instead, let’s support each other from a distance however we can. Buy gift cards. Send a text. Lists of ideas are all over the internet to remind us that social distancing doesn’t mean shutting down all communication and regard for those around us.

Obviously, I wish the Covid-19 pandemic weren’t happening. But since it is, I hope we succeed in slowing its spread and emerge with greater curiosity for the role we play in each other’s wellbeing. We could learn so much.

National Domestic Violence Hotline allows you to speak confidentially with trained advocates online or by the phone, which they recommend for those who think their online activity is being monitored by their abuser (800-799-7233). They can help survivors develop a plan to achieve safety for themselves and their children.

Suicide Lifeline: If you or someone you know may be struggling with suicidal thoughts you can call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) any time of day or night or chat online.

Laura Brignone Bhagwat is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley where she studies technology and domestic violence.  Her dissertation tracks a public health intervention in hospital emergency rooms meant to prevent intimate partner homicide.

Imagine yourself scared. Maybe you’re scared for your life; you’re definitely scared for your health and wellbeing. You’re probably scared for those around you, and scared for what your future holds. Imagine yourself terrified to go to the doctor, unable to secure your financial wellbeing. It probably isn’t that hard to do, as we’re all living in the age of the coronavirus.

Now, imagine that this coronavirus-like being lives in your house.

Imagine that it sleeps in your bed. Imagine that you are trapped in a house together with it, unable to go to work, school, a friend’s, a movie, a park, or anywhere that would offer you a few moments of reprieve. 

Now imagine it has agency. And it has trained its sights on you.

This is the situation that survivors experiencing domestic violence and child abuse are facing right now. When everyone else is at least six feet away, no one can hear you scream. [1] 

* * *

Social distancing/quarantining create an ideal setting for abuse

Abuse is about taking away another person’s agency, exercising power and control over them, and bending them to your will. Social distancing and quarantining isolate the survivor and cut them off from sources of support [2]. Usually, the abuser has to work to isolate the survivor. Now that social distancing and quarantine already enforce this isolation, the survivor quickly becomes at the abuser’s mercy: 

The survivor has nowhere to go or hide. They can’t spend time at work/school or with friends or family; they can’t talk to anyone without their abuser knowing; they are constantly present for the abuser’s emotional, psychological, physical, and/or sexual assaults.  

The survivor has no external resources. Unable to leave their homes, the survivor is limited or unable to access any practical/safety, financial, social or emotional resources that would help them mitigate the effect of the abuse, whether from friends and family or formal organizations [3].

Nothing counters the abuser’s narrative. Abusers often manipulate survivors into thinking they are at fault, that the abuse isn’t real, or that the survivor is the one with a problem.  Gaslighting is common in abusive relationships. Without friends, family or other countervailing voices, survivors begin to wonder if the abuser is right, and the survivor did something to deserve the abuse.

COVID-19 hands the abuser a tool. As public and social services (hospitals, government entities, friend/church groups) prioritize COVID-19, abuse response will require resources these services simply don’t have available. Moreover, abusers can threaten survivors with exposure to COVID-19, or use COVID-19 “precautions” as a pretext to exercise further control. 

Social distancing/quarantining exacerbate abuse

This isn’t hard to understand. When we feel powerless in the face of the unknown, we often respond by upping our game over things we can control. My newsfeed is full of rigorous baking projects, homeschooling/enrichment schedules, and potty training initiatives. 

However, abusers exact their need for power and control by forcing it upon another person. Social distancing and quarantine trigger risk factors that increase the rate and severity of manipulation and violence in abusive relationships.

Unemployment worsens abuse. COVID-19 is leading to a rapid increase in unemployment, particularly in low-wage sectors that have higher rates of physical and fatal violence. COVID-19 has also initiated a period of economic turmoil that could lead to further unemployment. Abuser unemployment is one of the four greatest risk factors for intimate partner homicide. [4]

Social upheaval worsens abuse. Sweeping societal change and economic uncertainty lead to more domestic violence and child abuse. This was evident in the Great Recession, and is also visible in less stable/more violent communities and societies.

Family upheaval worsens abuse. Family crises (such as domestic violence, mental health concerns, dramatic changes to family structure and parental social isolation) increase the risk of child abuse. Domestic violence shelters anecdotally report similar upticks during times of familial stress. 

Domestic violence is happening now — we can help

This has already started. The wave of post-quarantine divorces in China has been well-publicized; less-so the tripling of domestic violence-related calls to local police. In the United States, calls to domestic violence advocates have already begun to spike. In this era of shortages, closed resources and loss of work, our public health measures should cultivate opportunities to support survivors of domestic violence and child abuse. 

Public health directives and guidelines can include phone- and internet-accessible resources for survivors in every publication (as Rachel’s excellent post did a few days ago). Schools can (and are) continuing to offer grab-and-go free and reduced lunches — some (though very few) are making school social workers and/or other teleheath resources available to high school students, as well.

But for the most vulnerable — those too scared, too young, too monitored, or too physically or otherwise restricted to reach out to formal services themselves — those of us in their informal support networks are critical. 

Survivors of domestic violence and child abuse reach out to friends, family, teachers, and other trusted acquaintances much more often than to formal sources of support like law enforcement, helathcare, or relevant non-profit/government agencies. How those confidantes respond can make the survivor feel empowered, seen, and heard, or it can make the survivor feel further isolated, disbelieved, and alone.

If someone suggests to you they are not feeling safe at home, believe them. Communicate your belief that the abuse is not their fault. Ask how you can help. They are the expert in their situation, and they know what assistance will actually help, and what will put them in greater danger. Ask if you can check in regularly, and how you can do so safely.

Offer to help them make a safety plan. Support them as they think through what will increase their safety at this time. The National Domestic Violence Hotline and RAINN have suggestions on how to start. As you help the survivor think through ideas, you can offer to be a support person on the other side. For example, if the survivor wants to make sure the abuser is socially connected (and thus likely to initiate slightly less abuse), you can help make that happen; if the survivor wants to make copies of important documents, you could offer to store them. 

Offer to do research into DV/child abuse resources in your area. Many local DV agencies, therapist offices, and others are offering remote services right now. If the survivor would like access to these resources, it may be safer for you to do this research. In addition, you can help them find remote medical care (particularly important in situations of physical abuse, sexual abuse or reproductive coercion).  You can help them access food.  You can help them access other resources they may find helpful, ranging from the banal (like Netflix shows to binge) to the lifesaving (like a check-in schedule to ensure they’re alive and/or don’t need you to call 911).

Lastly, don’t be afraid to reach out for help, yourself. Helping someone through domestic violence or child abuse can often leave you feeling burned out, sad, helpless, or unsure of what to do next. The National Domestic Violence Hotline can be a major resource in these circumstances. They offer confidential, 24/7 support to survivors of abuse and those trying to help them. They are connected with a wide variety of resources to help both survivors and helpers working through this difficult situation. 

Even the best public health choices tend to exact the heaviest toll on those who are already the most vulnerable. As God’s hands on earth, we can do our part to be aware of that burden and alleviate that suffering. Or, in the adapted words of my favorite hymn: 

Because my soul’s been sheltered, fed by thy good care,

I cannot see another’s lack and I not share

My glowing fire, my loaf of bread,

And a safe shelter overhead

That they, too, may be comforted.

* * *

[1] As used here, “domestic violence” includes intimate partner violence (what we usually think of with “domestic violence” — boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, etc), elder abuse, vulnerable adult abuse, and coercive control between other immediate relatives or individuals living in the same household. 

[2] Social distancing and quarantining are essential to prevent the spread of COVID-19. I’m practicing them, and I encourage those who are able to do so as well. The purpose of this post is to highlight that survivors of domestic violence and child abuse may face more danger within their homes than from COVID-19. 

[3] For those who are able, there are exceptions to this rule! Many local and national services are online/text/phone-based and are expanding their reach right now. 

[4] According to internal data, per a personal conversation with the U.S. domestic violence homicide expert.

Cover photo by Chris Buckwald on Unsplash

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

Introductory Note:  Several years ago during General Conference I started journaling the messages my soul most longed to hear.  I posted one of those last Conference.  I’m doing so again now.  This requires a suspension of disbelief:  it contains a mix of true and aspirational content, and is written as if I had been asked to speak during General Conference.  I do not purport to actually have any authority to speak on behalf of the Church. 

Faith without works is dead.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to cast our spiritual burdens upon the Lord, rely on the grace of his Atonement, and put our faith in him during adversity.  But the Gospel also preaches that our spiritual health is intertwined with the physical welfare of our neighbors.  Pure religion looks not just to eternity but to now.

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them:  ‘Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled’; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.  (James 2:14-17)

The temporal urgency of faith resonates throughout ancient and modern scripture.  The Parable of the Good Samaritan reminds us there can be no spiritual purity for those who ignore the physical pains and sicknesses of their neighbors.  Caring for the poor and needy is one of the missions of the Restored Gospel.

During the October 1856 General Conference, President Brigham Young set aside messages of abstract faith to address the temporal needs of the Willie and Martin handcart companies, stranded in freezing mountains hundreds of miles away.  He called on all members to immediately commence the logistical work of a rescue:  115 wagons; 60 teams of horses and mules; 24,000 pounds of flour; as many blankets as could be spared.

“That is my religion; that is the dictation of the Holy Ghost that I possess.  It is to save the people. … Go and bring in those people now on the plains.  And attend strictly to those things which we call temporal, or temporal duties. Otherwise, your faith will be in vain.”

Within hours, rescue teams gathered around the Tabernacle laden with donated goods.

Today, we are inspired by Brigham Young’s prophetic urgency toward temporal salvation.  For six months we had planned that this General Conference would be an historic celebration of the 200-year anniversary of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s First Vision.  But world events have overtaken our plans.  After much prayer, we are rescheduling our commemoration of the past.  The COVID-19 pandemic is now.  We call on all members everywhere to channel their months of spiritual preparation into the holy work of succoring our world during a global pandemic.

Continuing the Restoration means continuing the work of rescue.  For now, Christ calls us to attend strictly to temporal things.  We must urgently care for all affected by this pandemic because faith without works is dead.

The rest of this Conference will be devoted to the logistics of how.  I will preview these messages, then step aside so faithful professionals can discuss their implementation in more depth.

Social Distancing

For the last few weeks, pandemic response work has been centered in our Church Office Building.  We have worked tirelessly to follow public health guidelines and shut down activities that risk global contagion.  We have closed our meetinghouses, our Temples, and our universities.  We have delayed mission service and commissioned flights to bring presently serving missionaries home.  We have urged our members to obey the stay-at-home orders percolating across states and countries.  We reiterate that message now:  stay at home.  Check in on your friends, families and ward families, but minister remotely.  Use phone calls, texts, and doorbell meal deliveries which minimize personal contact.

Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, we are blessed to still hold this General Conference.  During the 1918 influenza pandemic, General Conference was cancelled alongside worship services.  As we adjust to this new normal of not gathering in person, we encourage all remote forms of fellowship.  We are inspired by the e-mail listserv gospel studies, Zoom relief society meetings, and access to public broadcast channels our members are creatively assembling while practicing social distancing.

Essential Services and Supplies

Even while combating the coronavirus together by engaging in social distancing, we can do more.  This pandemic is unleashing a dual medical and economic crisis.  It is our Christian duty to help.

We know many of you are essential personnel on the frontlines of a global response.  You are public health officials, medical professionals, and scientists.  You are manufacturers, engineers, and utility providers.   You are agricultural workers, food service suppliers, and truck drivers.  You staff food banks and unemployment offices.  You are keeping supply chains running and preserving lives.  We pray for your health and safety.  We speak often of magnifying our callings in the service of our Lord; for now, your work is your sacred calling.  God honors and blesses your selfless heroism.

To assist with your essential efforts, the Church is working to source and distribute masks and other personal protective equipment to professionals at increased risks of exposure.  The Church is working daily to produce and distribute more emergency supplies.  We have increased our manufacturing output at Church-owned farms and factories.  We have increased deliveries to and staffing at our Bishops’ Storehouses.  We have donated hundreds of thousands of respirator masks and supplied other humanitarian aid.

You at home can contribute to our efforts.  If you have food storage, now is the time to consume it.  If you have gardens, now is the time to plant them.  If you have sewing skills, now is the time to make and donate masks.  The Church has posted detailed emergency preparedness guidelines on our website to assist with these efforts.  It includes delicious recipes for food storage, common gardening tips, and patterns for cloth masks.

Financial Resources

Thanks to provident living, the Church in recent years has been blessed with a surplus which the Lord prompted us to save for precisely the sort of “rainy day” global crisis we now confront.  We are working withing existing partnerships to set up temporary food and supply distribution centers worldwide. Like we do after hurricanes and other natural disasters, we are converting our meetinghouses into temporary shelters, distribution centers, and in some cases medical facilities.  In areas where we lack a presence and existing organizations are more effective, we are making targeted donations to bolster their work in succoring the poor and needy.

If you are in a position of economic security during this crisis, we ask you to open your hearts and your pocketbooks.  This crisis has called us all to compassion.  Be merciful with those who owe you debt.  Please donate 10% of your surplus — more, if you are able and the Spirit inspires you to do so — to alleviate others’ economic suffering.  If donated to the Church as tithing, please know that the Church has prayerfully decided to earmark all tithing donations this year for immediate humanitarian relief.

But given the severity and speed of this crisis, we do not ask that you pay your tithing to the Church.  There are needs in your immediate communities which you understand better than a centralized Church Office Building in Salt Lake City.  Your direct contributions can alleviate those needs more quickly.  We urge you to make a generous fast offering instead of, or in addition to, your tithing.  We also urge you to donate generously to other religious and secular relief organizations in your area.  Maybe you can buy groceries for your neighbors.  God will bless you for your generosity no matter the form it takes.  Charity never faileth.

We know in the last month alone millions of you have lost your jobs and your financial security.  We do not expect donations from those in need, although God will bless you for every compassionate act you undertake.  Please know there is help available.  We have instructed all Stake Presidents, Bishops, and Relief Society presidents on how to quickly distribute fast offerings to cover food, rent, and medical care.  We are also making available additional Church funds which Bishops and Relief Society presidents can access to distribute to those under their stewardship.

* * *

We are called to be God’s hands on Earth.  Where there is suffering, we are called to compassion.  Although it may seem odd to show compassion by staying home, our collective duty now is to stem the tide of this pandemic, assist our essential personnel, and support life.

Staying home, however, does not mean staying passive.  Pray for the world and minister to your communities.  Increase displays of patience and love as you labor in close quarters.  Use your skills and resources to support food, shelter, and medical care for all of God’s children.

“Impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.”  (Mosiah 4:26)

Together with Christ we can heal the world.

Breanne loves hiking and biking and traveling.  She is a friend of all faiths.

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward.   (Isaiah 58:6-8)

Fasting is a shared religious tradition.

I remember when I first learned that Jews have yearly fast days beyond just Yom Kippur. I was a graduate student in Jerusalem and was talking to a friend, who mentioned that he was fasting that day for one of the annual fast days commemorating the destruction of the Second Temple.

I was familiar with Yom Kippur and thought I understood a lot about fasting, so I asked him what he was fasting for. He looked confused, so I explained that in my religious tradition, we fast for something…perhaps something that requires greater faith than just prayer can provide. There is generally a goal of something that we want or need, so we sacrifice to show God that we truly desire that thing and hope to open ourselves up to further blessings. So what was he fasting for?

“No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Fasting isn’t for something. It’s…” and here he paused, trying to think of the right way to explain it to me.

We communicated mostly in Arabic, but he had an easier time talking about religion in his native Hebrew, so sometimes he’d switch to Hebrew.  But this time he really wanted me to understand, so he tried his very rudimentary English.

“We fast because we feel so much joy and gratitude, food would be a burden. Food and drinks would be too earthly, and would take us down from the heavenly joy that we feel.”

I had to admit that I generally felt just the opposite–that I was less likely to feel joy and more likely to feel grumpy when I went without food and drink.

Later, I found out from my Muslim friends that when Muslims fast during Ramadan, they don’t just abstain from food and drink. They are also to abstain from anger, greed, lust, sarcasm, and gossip. And all day every day for the entire month of Ramadan! I couldn’t imagine abstaining from sarcasm for even a day, so this was revelatory to me.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints around the world have been invited to fast today, Good Friday, in order to join in individual but united prayers to seek the blessings of God in order to heal the world, both physically and economically, from the current COVID-19 crisis.  Although we as LDS-Christians don’t generally “officially” or “liturgically” celebrate Holy Week, I’m so grateful to see a recognition this year of days that are so important to so many Christians around the world. I’m also grateful that so many LDS-Christians now have the chance to join with so many of our fellow Christians of other denominations, who have been fasting on Good Friday for generations.

As we fast today, Jews are commemorating Passover and have cleaned their homes of all chametz, or leaven, of which they will not partake until the week of Passover concludes. And Muslims around the world are preparing for Ramadan, a month of fasting that starts in April this year.

I have seen numerous invitations from LDS-Christians to their friends of any faith, or with no religious affiliation, to join in fasting and prayer today to stop the spread of COVID-19, to support those caring for the ill, and to help the world economy recover. In fact I’ve gotten what feels like hundreds of invitations to Facebook groups set up specifically for the fast, and I know that people all around the world are planning on taking part in fasting and praying for relief from this crisis, no matter what their religious affiliation is.

But I hope that with all of the inviting, my fellow LDS-Christians also recognize that we are joining our Christian brothers and sisters in a tradition of Good Friday fasting and commemoration that they have observed for centuries. I hope that we use this fast as an opportunity to learn more about fasting traditions in other religious communities and broaden our own understandings of how to fast in joy, in sorrow, in penitence, and in gratitude.

Going without food and drink also helps us understand in a very small way what those in extreme poverty face every day–hunger and thirst. Fasting helps give us empathy for those who cannot eat because they have no food, and who cannot drink because they have no access to clean water.

With so many around the world suffering now because of jobs and wages lost, I hope that everyone who participates in this fast today gives place in their heart for those who were in crisis even before this global pandemic: laborers around the world who can only eat on the days they work; those who have no access to healthcare; those who are fleeing from wars and violence in their own countries. After all, when this crisis passes and we start to pick up the pieces, we have a chance to help heal the world and not just let it return to “normal.”

May this fast bring us closer together as children of loving Heavenly Parents, and may we emerge from this crisis more committed to freeing the captives, binding the wounds of the brokenhearted, and bringing good tidings to the poor.

Dear Brother Givens,

I came across your post on abortion today.  I confess that I did not read it carefully because I am trying to be kinder to myself.  From what I did read, you quote several writers and statistics, and ultimately ground your opinions in your own visceral reactions to abortion and especially the procedures used in the second and third trimester.  I wonder, though, did you try to speak directly to any women who have had abortions?  Did you read any firsthand accounts of abortions by women who do not regret them?  Did you send out a call to your general female acquaintance to share their experiences with you?  I guarantee that you personally know some women who have had abortions, though, given what you wrote, I am not sure they would have trusted you with their experiences.

Here is what I would have told you.  I have been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from childhood.  I served a mission.  I have held many callings.  I remained chaste until marriage and remain faithful in my marriage.  And I had an abortion a few years ago on the first day of my fifteenth week of pregnancy.  

I was in my late thirties at the time, a graduate of a prestigious professional school, but no longer working outside the home, because I wanted to be home while my children were young.  I married late, not by design, and therefore started my family late.  At 11 weeks into my second pregnancy, we did some prenatal genetic testing.  The following week, the genetic counselor informed us that the fetus had Down’s Syndrome.  Within the space of two weeks after receiving the diagnosis, we pondered what to do, confirmed the diagnosis with further testing, and decided to end the pregnancy.  The clock was ticking, because we knew if we decided to end it, we wanted to do it as soon as possible.  

I get it.  You are looking for the big philosophical and moral answer. I looked for that answer too.  I read bioethics papers.  I read about Down’s Syndrome and reflected on the children with the condition I have personally known.  I spoke to the parents of adults with the condition.  I read about the abortion procedure.  I pondered my own beliefs about when the spirit enters the body and what God expects of me.  I did as much as I could to find “the answer” in the fog of those two weeks and I kept looking for a very long time.  If I am honest, I am still looking.  I have to agree that the simplest, most intuitive, most coherent answer is life.  Respect all life.  Save the unborn babies.  And also work for the end of the death penalty.  And work for social and economic justice.  And work for a better adoption and foster care system.  And work for more support for working mothers, single mothers, battered mothers, mothers with mental health issues, and just plain mothers. 

But what about now?  You are asking this woman to bring this child into her specific circumstances, which she does not see as conducive for this baby, now.  Not when all of your life-supporting work is done and the utopia achieved.  Now.  You are asking her to take that gamble with her life, with that baby’s life, and with the lives of her partner and other children.  You cannot pretend there is no risk.  There is, to the mother, to the mother’s other family members, to the unborn baby and to the child, adolescent, and adult that baby will become.  Risk of poor physical health or even death, risk of poverty, risk of neglect or abuse, risk of mental breakdown, risk of family dissolution.  But you, Brother Givens, don’t need to weigh those risks, because you are not personally confronted with them and you have put down your blanket rule.  Your coherent, simple, should-be-obvious-to-everyone-because-the-procedures-are-abhorent rule.  Specific circumstances and consequences be damned.

Here were my circumstances.  As I said, I was an older mother and my husband is even older than I.  Adults with Down’s Syndrome now routinely live into their sixties.  That means my husband and I would likely no longer be able to care for this child for 20-30 years of its life, either because we would be too old, or because we would be dead.  We only had one other child, so all of the responsibility of care would fall on that child, assuming that child would be physically, mentally, emotionally able and willing to take on that responsibility.  Yes, we could plan our lives to financially provide for the child’s care, but even in the best case scenario, quality third-party care may not be available.  We have friends going through this circumstance right now.

And what if something happened to me and my husband well before our healthy child could assume responsibility?  Our parents are too old to care for young children full time.  My husband’s sibling only very reluctantly agreed to care for our healthy child in the wake of our untimely deaths.  Our other siblings are not suitable caretakers for various reasons.  There is no one else.

Do you think I took this decision lightly?  Surely not.  Do you think I was selfish?  I was, in part.  I cannot deny that I took into account my own needs and desires.  (Why is that so wrong, by the way?)  But I also cared deeply about the welfare of my husband, my other child, and the possible future awaiting the fetus.  I did the best I could to weigh all of the risks and possible consequences.  Do you think I lacked faith?  Maybe I did, but can you blame me?  With all the work there is left to do to truly support life, as you rightly point out in your piece, can you blame me for not having faith that my disabled child would be well cared for in my virtually guaranteed absence for 20-30 years, some 30 years into the future?  I did not want to take that gamble.  Given our specific circumstances, I deemed it irresponsible.  And though these moments are sacred to me, I will tell you that I prayed to God and I felt understanding and love, not judgment.

As to your assertion that abortion harms the mental health of the woman, I have experience on that front too.  But please believe me when I say it is not the abortion that harmed my mental health.  I have replayed my reasoning for my decision a thousand times, just as I did for you here, and the result is always the same.  I do not feel remorse or guilt.  I do not feel the need to repent.  But I do feel shame. I feel shame because I fear rejection by my community for the choice I made.  I feel shame because a large portion of my coreligionists and my fellow citizens find what I did repugnant without knowing me or my circumstances.  I feel shame because I feel I must carry this secret in order to remain a part of a community I have held dear since childhood.  The secrecy and fear breeds shame, not the decision to end the pregnancy.  I have told a few close friends who are members of the Church, and they have embraced me and reaffirmed their love for me.  I wish I could trust the membership at large to do the same.

I could certainly give you many other reasons to keep abortion legal and to allow the woman to decide, but those are eloquently laid out elsewhere (also here).  I wanted to share with you the struggle of one woman who shares your faith.  I don’t share my personal experience because it is unique or because it is representative.  Each woman’s struggle when confronted with these hard choices is both unique and similar in some ways.  I only want to illustrate that, while the view looks clear to you from 10,000 feet, it’s much messier here on the ground.  I don’t have “the answer” to the morality of abortion and to the question of where to draw the lines.  Maybe someday I will, and maybe I will find that I made a grave mistake.  But I don’t think so.  I made a difficult, heartbreaking choice.  The opposite choice would have had its own heartbreaking consequences.  I am doing the best I can in the messy world.  But ultimately I am glad the choice belonged to me and my family, based on my research, my beliefs, my assessment of our circumstances, not to the government, and not to you.

Yours in fellowship,

Your Sister in Christ

Almost a year and a half into the pandemic, I’ve been thinking about how the church has responded to it. And [deeply fatherly voice]: I’m so disappointed.

It didn’t have to be this way, of course. The church started out great, cancelling all church meetings at the front end of when we (in the U.S., anyway) realized this was a serious problem. But since then, it hasn’t done a lot to deal with this unprecedented (in recent memory, anyway) worldwide issue.

There are two main areas that really stoke my fatherly disappointment: vaccines and the return to the status quo.

Vaccination

It’s clear that ultimately, universal (or, short of that, mass) vaccination is our best route to safety here. And again, the church started out decently. Pretty much as soon as they qualified for vaccination, top church leaders (including Pres. Nelson) got vaccinated and posted pictures of themselves being vaccinated to social media. They apparently also issued a news release encouraging people to get vaccinated (though honestly, I—who am Very Online—didn’t see the news release until I was searching to find the social media link).

And that should have been enough. After all, we have no religious objection to vaccination. In fact, providing immunizations is one of the church’s official humanitarian activities. Church leadership could have been forgiven for assuming that members would follow suit.

Until members didn’t. It became clear, though, that a not-insignificant portion of members opposed vaccination. That opposition has now led to Utah County—where somewhere around 80% of the population are members of the church—to see a surge in Covid, including, notably, among unvaccinated teenagers. And, embarrassingly for the church, this surge is fueled partly by Youth Conferences, Girls Camps, and whatever is replacing Boy Scout camps (and, Carri Jenkins notwithstanding, BYU camps. Only 38% of Utah County residents have been vaccinated.

So why are they not following the prophet? I suspect it’s because, photo ops notwithstanding, the church has signaled that it doesn’t see Covid vaccinations as important (or, at least, its statements can easily be read that way).

But why, if it issued a press release and Instagram pictures? Because the church doesn’t communicate its important directives through Facebook and press releases. When the church wants members to do something, it sends a letter, signed by the First Presidency, to be read in sacrament meeting. It says explicitly to members that they need to get vaccinated. Perhaps Pres. Nelson or one of his counselors says it clearly and unequivocally in conference.

But it hasn’t done any of these things. Moreover, it has signaled its lack of seriousness about vaccination in other ways. It has encouraged, but not required, domestic missionaries to get vaccinated. And, counter to an enormous trend, BYU and BYU-Idaho aren’t requiring students, staff, or faculty to be vaccinated for the 2021-2022 school year. (BYU-Hawaii, by contrast, deserves huge plaudits for requiring vaccination, counter to the BYU trend.)

I’ve heard that BYU’s attorneys believe that they’re subject to an idiotic Utah law that prevents state actors from requiring vaccination. On the face of the law, it’s plausible for reasons I explain here—like many state laws, it’s really poorly drafted—but I’m deeply skeptical that a definition of “government entity” that included private universities would stand up if challenged. And, in fact, Westminster College has decided to mandate vaccines. BYU at the very least should require vaccines and, if the state tried to enforce the law, challenge it.[fn1]

A friend argues that maybe the church is hesitant to challenge any vaccine laws for good reason. And he may be right (though I don’t think either of us is entirely convinced). But if that’s the case, at the very least, the church should use its lobbying power in the Utah legislature to try to get the law repealed or fixed.

Now don’t get me wrong—conspiracists notwithstanding, the church doesn’t always get what it wants when it lobbies. But lobbying at least sends to the membership the message that the church takes this seriously. And the church lobbies the Utah legislature about alcohol and cannabis, not, it says, solely because of religious opposition but because of public health concerns. And if it can lobby on public health grounds, there’s no reason it can’t lobby about vaccination.

I’m under no illusions that if the church did signal explicitly that members should get vaccinated that all members would. I’ve said before that members aren’t automatons. Vaccination, for some strange reason, has become a marker of political identity and, as C.S. Lewis notably observed nearly three-quarters of a century ago, it’s easy to shift from prioritizing our religious to our political ideology. Some portion of members would continue to refuse vaccinations. But for those on the margins—not ideologically opposed to vaccination but also not entirely sure—it could prove a determining factor. And the church would demonstrate its prophetic care for its members and for the communities in which they live.

Status Quo

This one’s fuzzier and I’ll be a lot less wordy here. But in my experience—both in Chicago and from hearing from friends and family throughout the country—the church seems to be primarily interested in returning to the status quo ante. Which is a huge missed opportunity. We’ve had a year and a half to figure out how to succor those in need of succor in new ways, to meet truly necessary needs of our people.

A couple examples: I recently saw a high school friend who is now a pastor. Her congregation hasn’t met in person since March 2020. And they’ve taken as a theme, she told me, protecting the vulnerable. Early in the pandemic, that meant the elderly. Today it means kids under 12 who can’t be vaccinated yet. They’ve sacrificed—they miss their in-person community and are looking forward to reenacting it—but they’ve had deep Christian meaning in their sacrifice.

Another friend’s priest has announced that, even after returning fully to in-person Mass, they will continue streaming Mass online. They plan on streaming both to reach those people who, for whatever reason, cannot attend and to allow their congregants to participate in Mass while they’re travelling.

Us? Well, my ward is back to unmasked singing with no distancing but is still streaming sacrament meeting and, until the end of the month, the second hour. A relative’s stake president has announced that even streaming is done.

I understand that we want to put the pandemic behind us. I do too! But if we didn’t learn anything from the last year and a half, if we haven’t figured out how to minister better to our ward members, we’ve wasted an opportunity. And if we treat the pandemic like it’s over, even through the Delta surge and the fact that our children cannot yet get vaccinated, we’ve failed as a people. And that strikes me as true failure.

[fn1] Heck, we could have been using our buildings as pop-up vaccination clinics.

I suspect that we’ll never find a definitive explanation of how the proscribed “hot drinks” in D&C 89 came to be interpreted by the church as referring purely and solely to tea and coffee. Today, of course, that is the church’s official interpretation of what “hot drinks” means, but early in the history of the D&C that wasn’t entirely obvious.

In fact, in January 1838—almost five years after Joseph’s receipt of the revelation—prominent members of the church on the high council disagreed about whether the Word of Wisdom’s invocation of “hot drinks” referred to tea and coffee. During a high council meeting, W.W. Phelps said he had not broken the Word of Wisdom. Oliver Cowdery, by contrast, said he had drunk tea three times a day during the winter as a result of his poor health. David and John Whitmer piped in that they didn’t drink tea or coffee, but also that they didn’t consider either to be hot drinks as referred to in Joseph’s revelation.

That short colloquy tells us a number of things. It tells us first that within early in the history of D&C 89, church members had interpreted hot drinks as referring to (at least) tea and coffee. But it also tells us that prominent church members nonetheless drank them and that the idea that tea and coffee were prohibited was not universally accepted.

It looks like this ambiguity about the meaning of hot drinks persisted for at least another four years. But in May 1842, Hyrum Smith discoursed on the Word of Wisdom. He dedicated two sentences to hot drinks: “And again ‘hot drinks are not for the body, or belly;’ there are many who wonder what this can mean; whether it refers to tea, or coffee, or not. I say it does refer to tea, and coffee.” While he sets the definitive foundation here for the future treatment of tea and coffee, the fact that, even a decade after Joseph’s receipt of the revelation people had questions about what “hot drinks” meant suggests that it wasn’t an obvious reference. Rather, it had to be defined.

So where did this idea of hot drinks (whatever they are) being bad come from? Seventeen years ago (man, time flies!) Nate Oman posited that it may have come from the pre-germ theory idea of humors. Others have theorized that it represented a caution against the extremes of Thompsonian medicine (which apparently liked tea a lot) or the embrace of the theories of Sylvester Graham (who eschewed coffee and tea and also almost any pleasure—he wasn’t the guy you would want choosing a restaurant).

Curious, I did what any right-thinking person on the internet would do: I did a Google Ngram search. I then clicked on the 1800-1850 results. And the results were glorious.

The most on-point was an 1850 editorial in the Millennial Star by the editor of the Deseret News. And I confess that I don’t entirely follow the editor’s reasoning, but it reflects non-Mormon reasoning that we’ll look at it a minute. But basically, the editor argues that, while coffee and tea may be “narcotic poisons,” there’s an additional reason not to drink them: because they’re “HOT.”

Yes, in 1850, a church publication argued that hot drinks literally meant hot drinks. Why? This is where I don’t follow entirely, but he says that hot water makes animal substances elastic; rawhide, leather, and meat(!), when immersed in hot water, can be bent into almost any shape. But it doesn’t have the ability to retain that shape until it cools (and perhaps dries).

Somehow, this heat-induced elasticity means that you could make a stomach into a saddle or a chain and, in any event, a stomach filled with hot water can’t do what a stomach is supposed to do. Instead, food in the stomach lies dormant, and eventually putrefies before the stomach cools off and can start digesting again. This putrefying food leads to headaches, uneasiness, fever, and, eventually, death. (Cold water, he notes, also weakens the “fluids of the system,” but it doesn’t relax the stomach in the same way hot water does. So while it’s better not to drink any water while you eat, if you’re going to drink, cold water is better than hot.)

He then launches into a metaphor of a sponge being stuck quickly into hot water and how it will absorb all of the water and lose the ability to absorb more. And while I can’t figure out how immersing a sponge in hot water differs from immersing it in cold, apparently it does.

Seriously, you need to read this piece. I’m going to give you the link again, just in case you skipped it the first time.

Now, it wasn’t just the Mormons inveighing against the problems of hot drinks; while it doesn’t appear to be universal, there was a fair amount written about the evils of drinks with a hot temperature. And the issues seem to largely fall into two categories: stomach problems and tooth problems.

In a, 1839 article in the Graham Journal of Health and Longevity, for example, we read that the stomach is a weak organ. (Seriously: apparently even “too much mental study” will mess with digestion.) Hot drinks “disturb the healthy action of the stomach, and create a diseased state of this vital organ.”

An 1829 article in the New England Medical Review and Journal came to a similar conclusion. Drinks, it says, should ideally be taken at body temperature. Hotter drinks may help people feel better temporarily, but eventually induce “an augmented suffering, by increasing the debility of the stomach, and rendering it less capable of after-digestion.” The article accepts, though, that there may be exceptions to this general rule.

The 1841 book A Treatise on Domestic Economy: For Young Ladies at Home bridges our gap between stomach and teeth. It asserts that if a person drinks hot drinks twice a day, “the teeth, throat, and stomach, are gradually debilitated.” The author believed that Americans’ habit of drinking hot drinks explained why tooth decay was more common among “American ladies” than Europeans. (Of course, these kinds of advice books could be inconsistent: in The Young Mother; or Management of Children in Regard to Health, the author acknowledges that hot drinks are bad for the stomach and cause tooth decay, but he believes that cold drinks are even more dangerous.)

And how do hot drinks damage teeth? Nature’s Own Book, written in 1835, has the answer for us. Substituting hot milk or watter for coffee or tea, it explains, is counterproductive because hot liquid is “relaxing to the solids of the body.” As best I can tell, that means that the heat makes teeth go soft, which leads to decay. And the author can prove it! Cows that ate hot still-slops lost their teeth within a couple years and could no longer eat hay.

There’s no reason, of course, that this means Joseph wasn’t influenced by Grahamism or humorosity or pure revelation. But it’s interesting to see an early 19th century discussion of hot drinks as bad by virtue of temperature itself. And that view seems to have had at least some purchase on church members.

A note before anybody comments: this post is not about whether the lived Word of Wisdom prohibits coffee and tea. It very clearly does. Rather, it’s about where the term “hot drinks” in D&C 89 comes from and what Joseph’s contemporaries were saying about hot drinks.

Chris Kimball is a friend of BCC and former bishop.

INTRODUCTION

Abortion is controversial. Controversy presents an opportunity and challenge for hard thinking. This is one small corner of the hard thinking, focused on the role and practice of a bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is not a global statement or manifesto, and not intended as an invitation to debate all the issues with abortion. 

As an introduction, here is the LDS Church’s position from the General Handbook of Instructions as of September 2, 2022, followed by my personal views and position.

General Handbook of Instructions: Section 38.6.1 (Abortion)

The Lord commanded, “Thou shalt not … kill, nor do anything like unto it” (Doctrine and Covenants 59:6). The Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience. Members must not submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. The only possible exceptions are when:

• Pregnancy resulted from forcible rape or incest.
• A competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy.
• A competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.

Even these exceptions do not automatically justify abortion. Abortion is a most serious matter. It should be considered only after the persons responsible have received confirmation through prayer. Members may counsel with their bishops as part of this process.

Presiding officers carefully review the circumstances if a Church member has been involved in an abortion. A membership council may be necessary if a member submits to, performs, arranges for, pays for, consents to, or encourages an abortion (see 32.6.2.5). However, a membership council should not be considered if a member was involved in an abortion before baptism. Nor should membership councils or restrictions be considered for members who were involved in an abortion for any of the three reasons outlined earlier in this section.

Bishops refer questions on specific cases to the stake president. The stake president may direct questions to the Office of the First Presidency if necessary.

As far as has been revealed, a person may repent and be forgiven for the sin of abortion.

Although details have changed, the overall pattern has been the same since 1976 (see this column by Jana Riess).

In my paraphrase, the Church’s position is a very strong condemnation using the “shall not kill or anything like it” formulation, but with limited exceptions, and with the woman (or the “responsible persons”) making the ultimate decision and bearing the consequences. 

There is a way to argue this standard is very strict. There is a way to argue this standard has too many exceptions. There is a way to argue this standard is actually a choice standard. Looking around the figurative room of Mormondom, it is reasonable to believe that very many members and leaders, in their private personal opinions, are not 100% aligned with the Church’s statement. Probably many are ready to salute out of loyalty, but if asked would describe a personal opinion that differs, whether more pro-life or more pro-choice (as those terms are understood in common practice) or simply quibbles with the wording or some of the details.

So that my prejudices and biases are open and obvious, and not any kind of hidden agenda, here’s my personal position: 

• With respect to abortion in the abstract, I am most closely aligned with “safe, legal, and rare.” I’m cognizant of concern that “rare” can suggest blame or censure or guilt. I use it anyway, meaning “rare” as a policy prescription, a way to validate policies and practices that reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and increase the number of cases where a pregnancy is happily and successfully carried to full term. 
• With respect to decision making, I’m almost 100% in the woman decides camp. I regret hard decisions for anybody, but as between the state or the church or a committee of doctors or any other decision-making body I’ve heard of, and the pregnant woman, I put my faith in the pregnant woman. I say “almost 100%” because I am open to a conversation about legislating certain edge cases but I’m not seeing an opportunity for that conversation in the current state of heightened controversy. 
• With respect to church discipline, I am strongly pastoral by which I mean that I understand discipline not as punishment or retribution or even justice, but useful and warranted (only) to help the individual or to protect others from future harm. 

COUNSELING

I used to be a bishop serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Like I acknowledged in the introduction, I have personal views on abortion. Other bishops also have strong opinions about abortion. Our opinions often are not exactly the same as the General Handbook of Instructions (for this purpose different is all we need). Pursuant to the “Members may counsel with their bishops as part of this process” I’ve often thought about what to do if and when a woman who is pregnant and considering an abortion comes to counsel with me. What would I tell her? How would I counsel her?

In a general sense, I would listen, ask questions, and pay attention. Then reflect back some version of “You seem to have thought this through. You are making sense.” Or in the alternative, “I don’t think you’ve thought this through completely. It seems like you’re skipping a step. I know this is awful, but I really do think you have more work to do.”

With regard to the Church’s position as stated in the General Handbook, because the Handbook is readily available at LDS.org and in the LDS Library app, and because the individual has already demonstrated that she is thoughtful and careful by coming to me in the first place, I would assume but verify that she knows what the Church has to say about abortion. If she does not I’d make sure she has the text. Whether she follows the counsel or not, it’s an important part of the information she should have. But if she already knows the Church position, I would not find value in repeating the Handbook text. On the flip side, I would consider it a dereliction of duty to quote the Handbook and stop the discussion with the reading. 

It is not uncommon to answer this kind of question with “listen to the Spirit and act accordingly.” For myself, if I had a clear indication (including a “stay out of it” indication) I’d be tempted to follow it. However, in real life, after many decades of experience, I am wary of the Spirit answer. If a prompting feels like new or novel information, or if it runs contrary to my prior beliefs and biases, then I have some confidence. But I fear that nine times out of ten the “Spirit” will answer in accord with my priors, and then I don’t trust it.

What I would not do is rely on or give my personal opinion about abortion. Right or wrong, exceptional or permissive, pro life or pro choice, my personal opinion is out of place in the bishop counseling role. I think it would be exactly the wrong thing to do, to bring my personal opinion into the bishop’s office. 

JUDGMENT

There’s another possible scenario for bishops regarding abortion. Suppose that after-the-fact a woman comes to me as bishop to confess that she had an abortion, in a private procedure that involved only a tight circle of responsible persons and medical personnel. Naturally, I still have my own opinions about abortion in general and perhaps about the women’s particular circumstances. I also have opinions about membership councils and restrictions. So how would I proceed?

First of all, I would set aside the “protecting others from harm” leg of disciplinary purpose. One could argue harm to the fetus, but by definition that’s a past event and would not meet my desire to protect against future harm to others. Others, taking more of a punishment or justice approach to church discipline, might argue that punishing the woman with some form of discipline will send a message to others that may prevent future harm in other situations. Personally, I consider that an abhorrent and abusive use of church discipline. I wouldn’t do it.

Turning to the pastoral side of church discipline, I would listen, ask questions, and pay attention. And think and pray about what’s best for the woman. If she is wracked with guilt and second thoughts, I would work with her along the lines of “a person may repent and be forgiven” (from the Handbook). Whether or not I think a sin has been committed, whether or not I think she is guilty of something horrible, the guilt is a present problem in her life and I would look for ways to help her through it. If a membership council or some kind of temporary restriction would be useful in that work, I would use it but only in consultation and, in practical effect, at her request. Not as any form of punishment or aggravation. If the passage of time, or consultation with a therapist, or replaying the situation with a knowledgeable medical professional would help, I would encourage her to pursue any of those approaches. If reviewing her consideration of the identified exceptional circumstances in the Handbook would help, I would encourage the review with me as bishop, or with someone else. 

I would not punt to the stake president. For all practical purposes the Church disciplinary system falls within the purview of stake presidents. Bishops take direction from stake presidents. Stake presidents have almost all the decisions and control. With respect to abortion, the Handbook invites bishops to refer questions to the stake president. I suspect it is very common for a bishop to consult with his stake president and follow directions, thus mooting the present discussion about what bishops should do.

The idea of consulting with the stake president is complicated and I’m being judgmental about myself when I say I would not take that route. When I was a bishop in my late 30s/early 40s, I was not the type to consult with the stake president. Looking back, I think it was hubris and ego, and I think that attitude did not serve me well. Mistakes were made and I wish I had done differently. On the other hand, now in my late 60s and older than most stake presidents I have known, I would consciously and intentionally put my judgment ahead of my stake president’s judgment and direction, and would do what I thought best whether or not advised differently.  For this and many more reasons, it is hard to imagine I would be called as a bishop at this stage in my life. Perhaps punting to the stake president is the right answer. I just know I wouldn’t do it.

The other thing I would not do is bring my personal opinions about abortion into the bishop’s office. The work that happens in that room should not be about my opinions, or even my sense of right and wrong. The work that happens should be all about helping the member be right with herself in her ongoing walk with God. The pastor doesn’t first say “here’s what you do.” The pastor first asks “how can I help.”