Primer: Mormonosity for Bandomers
I've been promising to write a primer on Mormon timelines, vocabulary, and cultural norms since I joined bandom almost two years ago, and here it is. It's amazing what procrastinating your schoolwork will do for your fandom activity.
Okay, I'm going to open by establishing my credentials, to the extent of, "I say so, and it is true, but if you don't believe me you don't have to use my primer as a reference."
I was raised LDS, first in Utah, then in Colorado, then a two-year stint of South Carolina, then more Utah. My family hold to it stricter than some, but I've known worse. (No, I'm not anymore. Yes, that is partially to do with my bisexuality.)
This primer is mostly because I get fed up with seeing Brendon's dialogue contain the phrase, "go on Mission." Because, seriously-I don't care what he's rebelled against, he still knows what to call it. LDSisms aren't his second language, swearing is. (It’s “go on a mission.” I promise. Indefinite article. Lowercase “m.”)
But it's hardly fair to blame non-Mormons for not knowing about Mormon culture, now is it? So instead of ranting uselessly, I decided to write a primer.
Now, when you screw up, I know it's your fault. (Or, more likely, that I need to add to the primer. ^_~)
Disclaimer: This is only a bare rundown of basic information, with particular attention to correcting mistakes I and other LDS-knowledgeable people have noticed in fic, and addressing questions asked me by friends in the fandom. If you are thinking of writing a devastating fic about Brendon's long drawn-out leaving of the church with angsty technically-accurate repentance processes involving church officials...well, please don't do it unless you have more than this primer to rely on, like actual knowledge. Mostly, this covers technical stuff that can be verified as fact in LDS literature, as opposed to judgement calls and emotional things, because those can vary so widely. I gladly offer the comments section to ask any questions I have not answered.
A Basic Timeline of Church Ceremonies/Important Moments for Typical LDS Males
A few further notes:
All the ceremonies up until marriage (apart from baptism) are basically just having the priesthood-holding men who are important in your life stand in a circle around you with their hands on your head and the most important one to you personally pronouncing a specific kind of prayer. This also happens when you are sick, when you are seeking personal guidance, and when you are given a calling in the church, except that when given a calling it is the person who will be your "supervisor" who pronounces the prayer. The prayer is a mixture of “blessing” and “directive”-this is what you should do, and this is how God will help you do it.
Temples-the white pointy things with an angel on top-are exclusionary; to get in, you need a recommend, which you get by being interviewed by various officials and promising you’re worthy by their standards. They’re for marriages, “ordinations”, and ceremonies for the dead. Unless, as a child, you’re being sealed to your parents (as in, they weren’t sealed when you were born, or you’re newly adopted), you don’t enter the temple until a) right before you go on a mission or b) right before you get married, in most cases; a few women decide not to go on missions and reach such old-maid status they/the authorities despair of their getting married and they’re permitted to go anyway. The first time you go (as an adult, if you had to be sealed as a child), you’re ordained for yourself. After that, you go through the ceremonies for people who have already passed on.
Churches (meetinghouses, chapels, all these names are appropriate) are where weekly meetings as well as social events take place. Most of the ones in the U.S. have a chapel with pews for sacrament meeting, classrooms, a few offices, and a gym/auditorium kind of area where talent shows and basketball games are held. There's also a kitchen/serving area because food is a big part of most LDS events. Funeral services and wedding receptions (separate from the marriage ceremony) are also usually held at the meetinghouse, partly as a cultural thing and partly because they're free; really well-off people might rent a ballroom or reception hall, but my guess is Brendon's family would go the chapel route.
A Little More About the Teen Years, Since That's Probably Why Most of You Care:
Teenage Social Life
Being "active" in the LDS church means participating in a lot of church-supported events, and it's especially involved between turning twelve and getting married-they like to give you lots to do, lots of opportunities to work, play, and form a social network while keeping you within a "safe" circle of people who will reinforce your belief system.
When Mormon boys hit twelve, they start attending weekly meetings (Brendon probably either called it "Young Men's" or "Mutual") in the middle of the week-Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evenings, most likely-for church-sponsored activities. Sometimes these mix age groups and/or include both genders; sometimes not. Activities vary from service opportunities such as taking meals or doing yardwork for people who need it to doing scavenger hunts and playing games to listening to spiritual leaders talk about spiritual things.
For the young men, this is mixed with their scouting activities-boys join the Cub Scouts when they turn eight and the Boy Scouts when they turn twelve, and most are expected to complete the requirements for an Eagle Scout award by the time they go on their missions. Scout leader is one of the church callings possible for adults in the ward.
The church also has sort-of intramural sports leagues (mostly things that can be played in the church gym, so basketball, volleyball, soccer) which usually meet once a week in the evenings for practices and once a week to play ward against ward. These are less compulsory than scouting and Mutual, as the church isn't a sports-pressuring atmosphere, but it's available.
"Stake dances" are held Saturday nights. These are like school dances only with slightly less formal clothing and slightly more chaperoning, and you're not supposed to take dates to them, you just show up (usually in a crowd of your friends.) You can't attend until you're fourteen.
Mormon kids are encouraged to treat friendships with non-Mormons cautiously-not to refuse friends, but to keep a sharp eye out for bad influences and, of course, to demonstrate through love and invitations to any of the above social activities that there is always room for one more in the fold.
Teen Romance
The church has a hard and fast rule about dating before you're sixteen, and talks loudly and often about how you shouldn't enter into exclusive relationships before you're ready to consider marriage, which translates in LDS-ese to "until you're through high school" for girls and "until you've returned from a mission" for boys. Even with the non-exclusivity thing, kids are strongly encouraged to date other Mormons, because "you'll marry who you date."
As to the physical side of dating...well, young women are encouraged to dress modestly, young men are encouraged to treat ladies with respect, and both of them are told that if you touch any private parts (above or under clothing) you'd better get yourself into a meeting with a bishop before you condemn your soul.
For this reason, double and group dates are also strongly encouraged.
Teen Mormons and Pop Culture
Teen kids in Mormon culture are told they should be "in the world, but not of the world," which means that most music is okay (so long as it doesn't use naughty words or glamourize drugs, sex, or violence), movies and television are okay (so long as they aren't rated R or above, keep the swearing to a minimum, and don't involve sex), and sports are okay (so long as you aren't discussing members of the other sex in the locker room and you aren't watching them on Sunday.)
How seriously kids take this is generally determined by their families-most families are okay with sports on Sunday, the occasional "hell" in lyrics, and TV shows along the same lines as Friends...but it runs a spectrum. (Personally, I wasn’t allowed to watch anything but PBS until I was twelve, and at age twelve was allowed to progress to Family Matters and Full House reruns.) You can probably pick how Brendon's family stands on it in your fic depending on your needs.
That Myth: Seminary
Every morning before school, high school students will attend seminary, which is a place where they make learning about the scriptures Fun and Interesting. (In theory.) This might be held at the church building, or it might be in the house of the seminary teacher. Lessons are about an hour long. (Yes, this means LDS kids have to get up an hour and a half or so earlier than their peers.) In Utah there are actually special dispensations arranged with the school boards so you can walk off campus and do this as one of your class periods instead of getting up early.
Authority Figures
LDS churches don’t have “pastors” or “priests” in the sense that most of you think of them. They have a “bishop”, who fulfills most of those functions in running the ward (congregation), but does not speak every Sunday. He’s the ultimate local authority figure, available for counseling, central to medium-level repentance processes, and responsible for organizing the work that everybody else does to keep the congregation a functional community. Bishop is a calling like any other local-level church job-it’s unpaid, and it’s a term of service. Most bishops are called for about a four-year period. (They’re usually men on the older edge of middle age, but not always.)
The Young Men’s organization also has a presidency (president, two counselors, secretary) overall, an advisor for each level (so, three total) and at minimum a scoutmaster, who sometimes has an assistant or two. All of these people help organize activities, teach Sunday lessons, and counsel the kids.
A stake is a group of wards--usually five or six. They're usually geographically adjoining, and they have their own committees and presidencies to coordinate big group efforts. Really serious sinners (adulterers, excommunications) go through a stake committee repentance process as well as one at a ward level with the bishopric, for example. Usually a stake shares one or two buildings, so coordinating who has the building when is a stake calling. Twice a year the Relief Society has a big stake-level party/fireside thing, and the stake has a committee for that, that kind of thing. Brendon’s unlikely to have had much stake-level activity, but I thought I’d better define it because I reference it once or twice in here.
The ultimate church authority (disregarding people like “Jesus Christ”) is the LDS equivalent of the Pope, called the prophet by Mormons. The current one is President Monson. He speaks for God to all the world and runs the whole shebang.
Teen Families:
LDS families are advised to, at minimum, read a few verses of scripture and say a family prayer once a day and have a “Family Home Evening”-an activity, usually but not always bracketed by prayer and religious singing-once a week. The daily scripture reading is something I’ve only encountered in pretty hardcore families, and Family Home Evening every single week is also fairly hardcore although trying for it as often as possible, or having it with whoever can come is more likely. The prayer thing was held to by most of my LDS friends’ families. Family Home Evenings are usually Monday nights, and how religious they are relies on familial (usually parental) discretion: I had friends for whom FHE was library time, going-to-the-movies together time, baking time, and rollerblading time; it was simply an effort at having a permanent spot once a week to spend with family members. More strict families (say, mine) had FHE as time for religious lessons or games. MMV.
Other than that, probably Brendon’s family was like other families of their socioeconomic class so far as time together, etc.
Ways In Which (No Really) Mormonism Is Not Catholicism or other prominent denominations
Something I was asked to remind people of: Nevada has a lot of LDS people. They’re used to them. Probably Ryan, Spencer, and Brent had met several before they met Brendon, and were familiar with the basic terminology like “bishop” and “ward.”
Once again: feel free to contact me through the comment section if you have further questions or if you have your own knowledge and disagree with any of my points. Happy writing!
Okay, I'm going to open by establishing my credentials, to the extent of, "I say so, and it is true, but if you don't believe me you don't have to use my primer as a reference."
I was raised LDS, first in Utah, then in Colorado, then a two-year stint of South Carolina, then more Utah. My family hold to it stricter than some, but I've known worse. (No, I'm not anymore. Yes, that is partially to do with my bisexuality.)
This primer is mostly because I get fed up with seeing Brendon's dialogue contain the phrase, "go on Mission." Because, seriously-I don't care what he's rebelled against, he still knows what to call it. LDSisms aren't his second language, swearing is. (It’s “go on a mission.” I promise. Indefinite article. Lowercase “m.”)
But it's hardly fair to blame non-Mormons for not knowing about Mormon culture, now is it? So instead of ranting uselessly, I decided to write a primer.
Now, when you screw up, I know it's your fault. (Or, more likely, that I need to add to the primer. ^_~)
Disclaimer: This is only a bare rundown of basic information, with particular attention to correcting mistakes I and other LDS-knowledgeable people have noticed in fic, and addressing questions asked me by friends in the fandom. If you are thinking of writing a devastating fic about Brendon's long drawn-out leaving of the church with angsty technically-accurate repentance processes involving church officials...well, please don't do it unless you have more than this primer to rely on, like actual knowledge. Mostly, this covers technical stuff that can be verified as fact in LDS literature, as opposed to judgement calls and emotional things, because those can vary so widely. I gladly offer the comments section to ask any questions I have not answered.
A Basic Timeline of Church Ceremonies/Important Moments for Typical LDS Males
- Baby blessing (6-8 wks old): public naming and blessing
- Baptism/confirmation (8 years old): official moment of "joining" the church, involving being dunked completely under water followed by a public blessing
- Receives the Priesthood (12 years old): can now participate in passing the weekly sacrament (the whole bread/water, body/blood ceremony); referred to as a "deacon"; moves from the children's group to "young men."
- Advancement to teacher (14 years old): nothing noticeable changes, but there's another ceremony? And you're not called a deacon anymore
- Advancement to priest (16 years old): can now bless the sacrament; can now perform baptisms
- Called to serve a mission (19 years old): receive the more adult version of the priesthood, allowing you to bless people (heal the sick, confirm as a member of the church, etc); spend two years under a strict schedule, trying to convert people to the church, constantly in the company of at least one other missionary. (This is a very strict rule. Not to the grocery store, not to a member’s house, nowhere. If you leave the apartment, you go together.) Most people go to the Missionary Training Center (MTC) long enough to be trained in what they’re supposed to do and-in some cases-the language they’ll be speaking, and then go to one place and stay there, although problems with forms mean sometimes you serve in two places, going to Ohio while waiting for a visa or whatever. (Wherever you go, you’re assigned, not given a choice.) Modern LDS missionaries are usually either young, single people or older, retired couples with no children currently living with them. Occasionally men with families are called to be mission presidents and run a particular area, but this is increasingly rare.
- Married in the temple (anywhere from 21 up, but if it's after 26 then people worry about you): Yes, the in the temple part is hugely important; marriages aren’t eternal until they’re sealed in a temple; you can get married outside the temple and then later be sealed in it, but your marriage won’t last until after death until you’ve been sealed.
A few further notes:
All the ceremonies up until marriage (apart from baptism) are basically just having the priesthood-holding men who are important in your life stand in a circle around you with their hands on your head and the most important one to you personally pronouncing a specific kind of prayer. This also happens when you are sick, when you are seeking personal guidance, and when you are given a calling in the church, except that when given a calling it is the person who will be your "supervisor" who pronounces the prayer. The prayer is a mixture of “blessing” and “directive”-this is what you should do, and this is how God will help you do it.
Temples-the white pointy things with an angel on top-are exclusionary; to get in, you need a recommend, which you get by being interviewed by various officials and promising you’re worthy by their standards. They’re for marriages, “ordinations”, and ceremonies for the dead. Unless, as a child, you’re being sealed to your parents (as in, they weren’t sealed when you were born, or you’re newly adopted), you don’t enter the temple until a) right before you go on a mission or b) right before you get married, in most cases; a few women decide not to go on missions and reach such old-maid status they/the authorities despair of their getting married and they’re permitted to go anyway. The first time you go (as an adult, if you had to be sealed as a child), you’re ordained for yourself. After that, you go through the ceremonies for people who have already passed on.
Churches (meetinghouses, chapels, all these names are appropriate) are where weekly meetings as well as social events take place. Most of the ones in the U.S. have a chapel with pews for sacrament meeting, classrooms, a few offices, and a gym/auditorium kind of area where talent shows and basketball games are held. There's also a kitchen/serving area because food is a big part of most LDS events. Funeral services and wedding receptions (separate from the marriage ceremony) are also usually held at the meetinghouse, partly as a cultural thing and partly because they're free; really well-off people might rent a ballroom or reception hall, but my guess is Brendon's family would go the chapel route.
A Little More About the Teen Years, Since That's Probably Why Most of You Care:
Teenage Social Life
Being "active" in the LDS church means participating in a lot of church-supported events, and it's especially involved between turning twelve and getting married-they like to give you lots to do, lots of opportunities to work, play, and form a social network while keeping you within a "safe" circle of people who will reinforce your belief system.
When Mormon boys hit twelve, they start attending weekly meetings (Brendon probably either called it "Young Men's" or "Mutual") in the middle of the week-Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evenings, most likely-for church-sponsored activities. Sometimes these mix age groups and/or include both genders; sometimes not. Activities vary from service opportunities such as taking meals or doing yardwork for people who need it to doing scavenger hunts and playing games to listening to spiritual leaders talk about spiritual things.
For the young men, this is mixed with their scouting activities-boys join the Cub Scouts when they turn eight and the Boy Scouts when they turn twelve, and most are expected to complete the requirements for an Eagle Scout award by the time they go on their missions. Scout leader is one of the church callings possible for adults in the ward.
The church also has sort-of intramural sports leagues (mostly things that can be played in the church gym, so basketball, volleyball, soccer) which usually meet once a week in the evenings for practices and once a week to play ward against ward. These are less compulsory than scouting and Mutual, as the church isn't a sports-pressuring atmosphere, but it's available.
"Stake dances" are held Saturday nights. These are like school dances only with slightly less formal clothing and slightly more chaperoning, and you're not supposed to take dates to them, you just show up (usually in a crowd of your friends.) You can't attend until you're fourteen.
Mormon kids are encouraged to treat friendships with non-Mormons cautiously-not to refuse friends, but to keep a sharp eye out for bad influences and, of course, to demonstrate through love and invitations to any of the above social activities that there is always room for one more in the fold.
Teen Romance
The church has a hard and fast rule about dating before you're sixteen, and talks loudly and often about how you shouldn't enter into exclusive relationships before you're ready to consider marriage, which translates in LDS-ese to "until you're through high school" for girls and "until you've returned from a mission" for boys. Even with the non-exclusivity thing, kids are strongly encouraged to date other Mormons, because "you'll marry who you date."
As to the physical side of dating...well, young women are encouraged to dress modestly, young men are encouraged to treat ladies with respect, and both of them are told that if you touch any private parts (above or under clothing) you'd better get yourself into a meeting with a bishop before you condemn your soul.
For this reason, double and group dates are also strongly encouraged.
Teen Mormons and Pop Culture
Teen kids in Mormon culture are told they should be "in the world, but not of the world," which means that most music is okay (so long as it doesn't use naughty words or glamourize drugs, sex, or violence), movies and television are okay (so long as they aren't rated R or above, keep the swearing to a minimum, and don't involve sex), and sports are okay (so long as you aren't discussing members of the other sex in the locker room and you aren't watching them on Sunday.)
How seriously kids take this is generally determined by their families-most families are okay with sports on Sunday, the occasional "hell" in lyrics, and TV shows along the same lines as Friends...but it runs a spectrum. (Personally, I wasn’t allowed to watch anything but PBS until I was twelve, and at age twelve was allowed to progress to Family Matters and Full House reruns.) You can probably pick how Brendon's family stands on it in your fic depending on your needs.
That Myth: Seminary
Every morning before school, high school students will attend seminary, which is a place where they make learning about the scriptures Fun and Interesting. (In theory.) This might be held at the church building, or it might be in the house of the seminary teacher. Lessons are about an hour long. (Yes, this means LDS kids have to get up an hour and a half or so earlier than their peers.) In Utah there are actually special dispensations arranged with the school boards so you can walk off campus and do this as one of your class periods instead of getting up early.
Authority Figures
LDS churches don’t have “pastors” or “priests” in the sense that most of you think of them. They have a “bishop”, who fulfills most of those functions in running the ward (congregation), but does not speak every Sunday. He’s the ultimate local authority figure, available for counseling, central to medium-level repentance processes, and responsible for organizing the work that everybody else does to keep the congregation a functional community. Bishop is a calling like any other local-level church job-it’s unpaid, and it’s a term of service. Most bishops are called for about a four-year period. (They’re usually men on the older edge of middle age, but not always.)
The Young Men’s organization also has a presidency (president, two counselors, secretary) overall, an advisor for each level (so, three total) and at minimum a scoutmaster, who sometimes has an assistant or two. All of these people help organize activities, teach Sunday lessons, and counsel the kids.
A stake is a group of wards--usually five or six. They're usually geographically adjoining, and they have their own committees and presidencies to coordinate big group efforts. Really serious sinners (adulterers, excommunications) go through a stake committee repentance process as well as one at a ward level with the bishopric, for example. Usually a stake shares one or two buildings, so coordinating who has the building when is a stake calling. Twice a year the Relief Society has a big stake-level party/fireside thing, and the stake has a committee for that, that kind of thing. Brendon’s unlikely to have had much stake-level activity, but I thought I’d better define it because I reference it once or twice in here.
The ultimate church authority (disregarding people like “Jesus Christ”) is the LDS equivalent of the Pope, called the prophet by Mormons. The current one is President Monson. He speaks for God to all the world and runs the whole shebang.
Teen Families:
LDS families are advised to, at minimum, read a few verses of scripture and say a family prayer once a day and have a “Family Home Evening”-an activity, usually but not always bracketed by prayer and religious singing-once a week. The daily scripture reading is something I’ve only encountered in pretty hardcore families, and Family Home Evening every single week is also fairly hardcore although trying for it as often as possible, or having it with whoever can come is more likely. The prayer thing was held to by most of my LDS friends’ families. Family Home Evenings are usually Monday nights, and how religious they are relies on familial (usually parental) discretion: I had friends for whom FHE was library time, going-to-the-movies together time, baking time, and rollerblading time; it was simply an effort at having a permanent spot once a week to spend with family members. More strict families (say, mine) had FHE as time for religious lessons or games. MMV.
Other than that, probably Brendon’s family was like other families of their socioeconomic class so far as time together, etc.
Ways In Which (No Really) Mormonism Is Not Catholicism or other prominent denominations
- Nobody is "christened."
- Nobody goes to confession.
- Priests are sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys, not authority figures who wear collars
- Most Mormons find wearing crosses somewhere on the scale between "in bad taste" and "vaguely blasphemous." They don’t make the sign of the cross, either. Brendon might have worn a CTR ring (it stands for “choose the right”), though, if you want a piece of jewelry, an outward symbol of his background.
- There are no “sermons.” Congregation members give “talks”-usually one “youth” speaker (12-18 yrs) and two adult speakers-in the big meeting on Sunday; this averages out to active adults being asked to speak once every one or two years unless they have a prominent calling like president of an organization (Young Men’s/Women’s, Primary, Relief Society, etc.) The first Sunday of every month is “Fast Sunday” when the stand is opened up for anybody to come and bear spiritual witness, which is called “bearing your testimony.” After this meeting, which also involves the bread-and-water thing and singing and prayers and announcements, the ward splits into smaller groups according to age, and goes to Sunday School and then into even smaller groups according to sex and goes to the appropriate organizational meeting. (Young Men’s, for Brendon in his teens.)
- No. Bible. Camp. None. For one thing, the Book of Mormon is at least as central to doctrine as the Bible; for another, there’s no equivalent. If you want a place Brendon might have met LDS people his own age he didn’t grow up with, that could be at one of four places:
- EFY: Especially For Youth, which is a week in the summer when you go away to a college campus, board in the dorms, and spend your time in wholesome activities/in spiritual lectures/activities with kids roughly your own age. I believe these are open to age fourteen and up. They’re special, though, you have to pay to go; it’s rare for kids outside the Idaho-Nevada-Utah bubble to go more than once in their lives because of travel, etc.
- Youth Conference: These are similar, except that you aren’t always sent away, and it’s more-or-less free; they’re offered to everybody and organized by location; say, a group of adjoining stakes. There’s one every summer.
- Trek: A re-enactment of the pioneers crossing the plains. You dress up in long skirts and suspenders, are organized into families, given baby dolls (half of whom will “die” along the way) and walk, hauling wagons, building campfires, the whole bit. Again, more likely a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but much more likely to attract people from all over the country.
- Scout Camp: once a year, the ward scout troup will go camping, and sometimes this involves going to official Boy Scouts of America campsites and mingling with groups from other places.
- EFY: Especially For Youth, which is a week in the summer when you go away to a college campus, board in the dorms, and spend your time in wholesome activities/in spiritual lectures/activities with kids roughly your own age. I believe these are open to age fourteen and up. They’re special, though, you have to pay to go; it’s rare for kids outside the Idaho-Nevada-Utah bubble to go more than once in their lives because of travel, etc.
Something I was asked to remind people of: Nevada has a lot of LDS people. They’re used to them. Probably Ryan, Spencer, and Brent had met several before they met Brendon, and were familiar with the basic terminology like “bishop” and “ward.”
Once again: feel free to contact me through the comment section if you have further questions or if you have your own knowledge and disagree with any of my points. Happy writing!