Mormon Olympics: Mental Gymnastics Edition

I could go the rest of my life without seeing another pastel rainbow Instagram story posted by a “well-meaning” member of the church. 

I think we all know what I’m talking about. It looks like a vague Bible quote about God loving everyone. Maybe there’s a “hot take” from a woke Mormon therapist. Bonus point if it includes the phrase “LGBTQ Brothers and Sisters,” or if it comes from one of the famous “Mormon and Gay” book authors. Maybe there’s an Elder Holland quote about not judging… Oh, wait. 

I have always been impressed by Mormons and our mental gymnastics. We twist ourselves into knots to account for every homophobic comment given over the pulpit and have mastered the art of jumping to the most pleasant conclusion. We applaud those who can gracefully walk the balance beam of political correctness and “upholding the faith.” 

Is the fear of our own theology driving us to these gymnastics routines? Do we precariously walk the balance beam because we’re too nervous to make a stand on one side or the other? I think many of us fear the possibility that our theology may be rooted in homophobia. We fear that the time will come when we must make difficult reckonings in our faith. And we fear the implications of our participation in an institution that actively denies the rights of LGBTQ individuals. And we fear the fallout in our social circles, family relations, and personal worldviews if we could no longer twist the truth to appease ourselves, to live a comfortable narrative where every stray comment has a deep backstory to explain away the rhetoric we feel uncomfortable about. 

So we return to the comfort of the exercises we know best. We swap painful reckoning for performative practice. But can I blame anyone for seeking that comfort? Can I wish my sleepless nights and days of confusion, of bitterness, of spiritual loneliness on anyone else? 

I understand why we have adapted to our mental gymnastics, I really do. I understand why it is easier to throw out sweeping platitudes about God’s love, rather than be labeled a “condoner of sin” by taking a stand. I understand why we long to be appeased by the idea that there’s a place for everyone, rather than look for too long at the ever-growing group of LGBTQ people who have been cast from our midst. (If there is a place for gay people, then where is it? In the lifelong chastity closet?)

But if we tackle these new routines, routines of answering hard questions and making painful evaluations, we must risk the discomfort of sore muscles and the fatigue of faith. We’ve become comfortable in our twisted mental knots with our platitudes and concessions. In fact, we’re proud of just how flexible we can be in our faith, forgetting how easily that which bends can break. 

So when we bend over backward to dodge every stray bullet from the muskets firing all around us, we only serve to convince those watching that there are no casualties. And as we perform our well-practiced mental gymnastics, we offer no cover, no respite, to those who stumble. They become easy targets, while we’re too busy perfecting our performance to notice those who fall.

I’m not here to say if Provo culture can be fixed, or if Church culture can be cured. I simply know our mental gymnastics are doing us no favors. We are crippling our spiritual capacity to reckon with the intellectual and ignoring our intellectual ability to grapple with the spiritual. We mistake repetition for results, and thus our collective faith becomes a cycle of those same mental routines, adjusted for the newest controversy that demands 300 versions of the same response —  a pale excuse for that intellectual and spiritual wrestle we’ve never been trained to do. 

Yes, all of us will at times be disingenuous to our faith, be that in God, ourselves, the stars, or otherwise. We will all act in contradiction to our ideals. To do so is to be human, and I find that our stumbling pursuit of idealism is the common thread that binds us as a human family. 

But what I’m trying to convey, through analogy and vague references, is how much my heart aches for a restoration of passion and beauty in my faith, a restoration of pushing onward and never turning back, and a restoration of bearing one another’s burdens and all those other ideals my cynical brain wants to scoff at. Each day, I walk on campus, surrounded by the pretense of Christian love, and find only a shell of that great ideal and all our other grand principles. And I wonder how my great temple of learning became for me merely a temple of moneychangers and Pharisees, a temple of job opportunities and networking events. I see all around me the vision of what it could be if only I had the courage and the will.  

I think we can be more than what we are now — a gymnast who is halfway to great and halfway not. I guess I really just care that we stick the landing, on one side or the other. It’s time to stop walking the balance beam and to deal with the world with our feet soundly on the ground.