OK, so my convert friend thinks the Mormon church has a problem with gossiping. Every, and I mean literally, every ward she has attended has a gossiping problem. It's like high school in a church. Funny thing again is, she has never experienced something like this at any other church she has been at. She was sitting in RS once in a ward she visited and one of the sisters in ward stopped attending church because someone seriously hurt her feelings. The way my convert friend put it though, and I don't even think she even realized this, but it sounds like there is a bullying problem, too.

Do church dynamics create some sort of superiority complex? This is my own vibe I am picking up here from my convert friends, as well as, my ex-mo and closeted friends.

Your friend is right on target. As an 18 year old convert, It took me many years to see what your friend has realized. Every ward has a Ward Council comprised of all the leaders. At these council meetings, the leaders talk openly about the struggles of ward members. Of course, all of this is supposed to be confidential, right....

Perhaps my most favorite gossip moment was when a member of the bishopric mentioned that Sister X had peanut butter legs—easy to spread. Seriously, is this the way leaders are supposed to talk about ward members?

"For I am that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder." 2 Cor. 12.20

And,

"Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless." James 1.26

And,

" A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret." Proverbs 11.13

So, clearly, gossip at church has been a problem for thousands of years...

The mormons just take it to a level of perfection :)

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So, clearly, gossip at church has been a problem
> for thousands of years...

As usual, Hie, you are right--partly right. :-/
Gossip has been a problem of Mankind for thousands of years. The Bible addresses our human failings, gossip being a very common one.

It's an epidemic there and motivated by jealousy, bitterness and insecurities. I was usually the victim of the RS's gossip. That was a bit part of my leaving in addition to the CES letter.

unbelievable2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's an epidemic there and motivated by jealousy,
> bitterness and insecurities. I was usually the
> victim of the RS's gossip. That was a bit part of
> my leaving in addition to the CES letter.


I suspect it's also fueled by an organization that is entirely too involved in its members lives, leading the members not to respect boundaries, either

People here have compared Mormons to Catholics in terms of gossip. It's a bit of an 'apples and oranges" comparison. In terms of church membership and attendance, Catholics just show up at mass, get through the roughly forty.five minute mass, then leave. They probably greet a few people as they leave or exchange a bit of small talk, but mostly they go to mass for whatever reason motivated them, then go home. There's no women's organization, no home teaching, no visiting teaching, no ward council, etc,

Where one might begin to see a bit of resemblance between the LDS level of gossip in relation to Catholics is at a Catholic elementary school. Among the parents of kids attending Catholic elementary schools is where you see the back-biting and wanton spreading of unconfirmed rumors. Too many of the parents have too much time on their hands and more money than brains. They rival any level of gossip at LDS, Inc.

I love that James 1:26 quote. I can use that thanks for posting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2018 03:18PM by CA girl.

I was the target of this gossip league in our ward back in the late 70's.

My DH was the bishop. that is a whole other story but we were dirt poor as he was doing a post doctoral fellowship and got very little pay. I had two elementary school age kids and an infant.

Finally, it became painfully clear that I HAD to go back to work, so I did. That was when RS was held during the week, so I had to be released from my calling. One day after work, I got a phone call from a ward member who wanted to give me a head's up about a certain sister (A busybody) who had gotten up in the RS meeting and speculated that the bishop had gotten himself into debt and forced me to go to work! Oh, the horror! That put a little chink into my belief armor, if I'm being honest.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2017 11:12PM by gemini.

Welcome to perpetual Junior High. Mormonism stunts your emotional growth, because it’s the only way you can follow those geezer leaders. Find yourself a clique and catch up on the latest gossip, because that’s the most excitement Mormonism has to offer.

Op, your friend was right on target. During my divorce and custody battle, a horrendous time in my life, I was talked about constantly. People I hardly knew would sometimes mention my personal business, and ward members were always asking me nosy questions. It is under the ruse of "helping." Gossiping is not helping. I moved from that area because way too many people know too much of my business. Ratbastards.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2017 05:58AM by Aquarius123.

Your friend is smart. I joined the church my first year of college - as a 19 year old male. After a year had past, members of the ward started to ramp up the pressure on me to serve a mission. While I didn't have anything against the idea of serving a mission, I am too much of an introvert, was focused on school, and had several sick family members I was helping to care for. This, apparently, is just seen as excuses to the Lord's elect. I quickly found out that more than one ward committee was speculating on what the REAL reason I wasn't serving a mission was. It was what pushed me out the door (No TBMs, I wasn't offended - I was CRUSHED that people I loved would say such horrible things about me behind my back), though theological differences eventually kept me out.

Years later, it gave me great satisfaction to learn that the sons of 2 of the main offenders in all of this decided not to serve a mission. I wonder if they are spending their time in their meetings trying to figure out what their own sons secret sins are, or if they only reserve that for other people's children?

Gossip is not a mormon problem, rather, gossip is a mormon tool.

Other religions go to great lemgth to protect confidentiality.

Mormonism weaponizes confidentially.

Right on.

I forgot about this. I remember hearing gossip from my TBM friend that was very personal about another person. Of course I listened but I thought, "I wouldn't want this information to be known to the public".

I dunno, I kind of give the Mormons a pass to the extent that anytime you have a small insular group (your ward or branch) spending a lot of time together in a way that places high demand on you (lots of rules, lots of tasks and meetings), you're going to gossip a lot. It releases the tension.
I think there are lots of other situations like this, be it a work environment, or a cult, or a club, or an AA group, whatever
People gossip, it's hardwired into our brains and we've been doing it for thousands of years

Members rat each other out constantly. That's how the bishop knows who is sinning. Gossip is a way for mormons to justify their own faults by magnifying those of others. It's also how they determine church status. It lets them know who to treat well and who to snub.

Gossip is destructive.

Mormons have it honed to a fine art. That's how they destroy each other from within the ranks.

I've never seen a church group so hell bent on maliciously tearing other people down than I did as a Mormon.

One of my convert friends used to tell me that he knew the church either had to be 100% true or 100% phony based on how much church members persecuted each other. He comes from a Catholic background.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2017 11:40AM by Amyjo.

I grew up with a lot of gossip about our family as we weren't your typical mormons, so I've always known about it.

The ward didn't know my ex had left for 2 years. They didn't know he was gay for longer than that. I was inactive, so nobody knew much of anything, but they still talked of course. Then my VT told me that her husband, a clerk, told her that the bishop said he saw me out walking at night and she told him, "So that the ward won't gossip about her."

Nowadays, I feed the gossip. I asked my TBM daughter once if we confuse the people in the ward and she said, "Yes!!" My gay ex lives here. I have a boyfriend who comes here daily and even lived here for 6 months. My son smokes his pipe out in front of the house and lives here, but people don't see him much. Basically I just live my life and give the ward plenty of things to gossip about and I get a kick out of it. I am finally living authentically and they can't stand it.

I really hope my friend's shelf will crack because I was surprised to learn when she joined the Mormon church. I think my ex-mo and closeted friends were way more stunned. idk what the wards gossip about, but it doesn't seem like she's a target. More like she notices this and thinking "this is 'church'?" She's a smart cookie and if you guys are telling me she's picking up fast, I hope she'll be out as quick.

I think it may be more noticeable in the Mormon church because the adage that familiarity breeds contempt. Catholicism doesn't seem promote or impose community to the same degree Mormonism does. Everybody in Mormonism seems to be up in each others' bidness as a matter of course, and cliques form more as a matter of defense against whatever factions may take a disliking towards you.

My wife was a recent divorcee in her old ward before we met. She had opened a cafe with her sister, and the contractor remodeling the cafe was the best friend of her sister's husband. The four of them spent a lot of time together getting the cafe ready for opening.

It was the contractor's wife who had started the rumors because their marriage was already on the rocks and I think she was looking for a scapegoat...enter my wife. At least half of the ward was convinced that my wife was having an affair with the contractor, solely on the say-so of the contractor's wife.

Thank you for this story, Greg S.

The other posters are assuming that most of the gossip is truthful. No. Mormons aren't just betraying confidences, revealing secrets, discussing the problems of others.

They make up lies about people. They do this out of jealousy, anger, and hatred. It has little to do with the actual struggles of others. Mormon gossip is with the intent of putting someone else down, in order for the gossipers to feel better about themselves. Gossips have an emptiness they need to fill. Whatever it is--a wife being neglected by her husband, someone feeling unattractive, seeing someone being more successful than they are, feeling unpopular, having rebellious children who do not respect them--the list goes on and on.

Just seeing someone else who is happier than they are can start people gossiping.

Yes--seeing a woman working happily at a successful career is definitely fuel for gossip.

Quitting a calling is fuel for gossip. You are not being obedient. The Mormons are not getting their way with you. I had to quit my callings because of a serious illness, and no one showed me any empathy at all. They just gossiped that I was inventing a fake illness, to get out of my callings. Someone saw me at the grocery store, or driving around, or weeding the yard, so I was "faking." I was able to get out of bed for a few days, between hospital treatments. It helped my recovery to act as normal as possible. It cheered up my children for them to see me dressed, and cheerful. I was NOT going to alter my life and my recovery to suit a bunch of gossips! I was NOT going to pay tithing, when I was on a leave of absence from work, and had no income for that time.

I admit that the Mormons' gossip, and lack of caring led to conversations with my children, and discoveries of abuse that they had been afraid to tell me about.

So glad to be out of that snarky garbage.

Gossiping is all they have in their stagnation. Since they never get to that CK in life they have to do something with themselves.

You have to wonder about an environment where people want to gossip. If gossip makes you feel better about yourself, that’s a clue that your life sucks. Because Mormonism sucks.

You crack me up every time babylon. Blunt and to the point, no f#cking around just say it like it is.

My parents believed gossip over the truth, over anything I could say or prove.

On day my Dad walked into my room. He told me that if I got (some girl I never heard of) pregnant, I'd have to move out.

I looked at him and said we wouldn't want to live with them anyway.

He stormed off.

To this day 40 years later I have no idea who he was talking about.

At Least he could have said ' any girl', but the stigma was apparently very important...

Gossip was worse than that damnable underwear. It was high on the list of things that drove me out. I don't mean the latest news but gossip. The stuff that hurts to the bone. They use their free agency to tattle.

I have never run into that problem in the Catholic church.

Are Mormons oversensitive? I'm getting the idea that they are.

Not oversensitive-overnosey and meddling.

Concur with Gheco on gossip being used as a tool. Why? I think it may be about the pink elephant in the room, i.e., that the church is a scam and no one wants to acknowledge it so they use the distraction of talking about the faults of others, not leaders. Remember talking evil against the leaders of the cult is a covenant in the temple, Do Not Do. So members split off and bash other members in and out of their cult as a way to fling their anger and disgust for being trapped in a scam they have no courage to confront and leave. Gossiping is an escape to deal with their rage from being abused, exploited, and violated. Seems the culture breeds infantile psychosis, split off BPD, due to the level of entrapment the member is in. Since there is no truth in the cult, they hid behind the gossip. VT, HT, council meetings, interviews, callings were all ways to keep the pot of toxicity going. It becomes obvious during FT when members talk about anything except their faith in the Lord. It's their pledge of allegiance to the cult ritual that was a ruse to keep them as safe as possible from more gossiping. See I am better than you at xyz so blah, blah, blah you don't have to hurl mud at me. The cult is a social organization not a place to worship Diety. Diety was hardly mentioned in the mind control, numbing rituals to keep members in an infantile state of co-dependency.

Gossip as a form of self denial. Subconsciously you know it’s a farce, but you play along “because you must”. All that repressed rage turns inward and becomes depression, so Utah becomes the Prozac capital of America. Anything that distracts the mind from the nagging truth is a welcome escape. Gossip, TV, Facebook, church literature, ...

We've all heard the 'telephone' example of how communication gets twisted & amplified in re-telling...

Also true in Mormonism!

I agree that gossip is everywhere there is a tight group. It is our nature. It is also the source of much power for women, as I recently learned in the book, Woman's Inhumanity to Woman, by feminist Phyllis Chesler. Comments from this site are below.

https://www.amazon.com/Womans-Inhumanity-Woman-Phyllis-Chesler/product-reviews/1556529465/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_paging_btm_3?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&pageNumber=3


“Man’s inhumanity to man”--the phrase is all too familiar. But until Phyllis Chesler's now-classic book, a profound silence prevailed about woman’s inhumanity to woman. Women's aggression may not take the same form as men's, but girls and women are indeed aggressive, often indirectly and mainly toward one another. They judge harshly, hold grudges, gossip, exclude, and disconnect from other women.



Second Wave feminists have for 30-plus years operated under the assumption that sisterhood is powerful. Indeed, women acting in concert have forced society to redefine gender, domestic relations, and the workplace. Still, despite huge gains in public visibility, female ascendance has been hampered by a rarely acknowledged reality: women often betray, hurt, and humiliate one another. Mothers stymie daughters, biological sisters compete, girlfriends gossip maliciously, and women bosses exert arbitrary and capricious authority. Chesler (Women and Madness, etc.) has been studying this phenomenon for 21 years, and her research is fascinating, resonant, and unsettling. While the book focuses on psychological rather than political factors and pays too little attention to race and class, it is nonetheless a groundbreaking look at how women perpetuate oppression. Anthropological, biological, literary, and sociological theories are also tapped, giving the book added heft. Although the text is somewhat repetitious and self-congratulatory, it is highly recommended for all public and academic libraries. Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY



She wrote in her Introduction to the 2003 edition of this book, “a long time ago, I believed that all women were kind, caring, maternal, valiant, and ever-noble under siege---and that all men were their oppressors. As everyone but a handful of idealistic feminists knew, this was not always true… like men, women are really human beings, as close to the apes as to the angels, capable of both cruelty and compassion, envy and generosity, competition and cooperation… Psychologically, seemingly contradictory things can be true. Women compete mainly against other women and women mainly rely upon other women; women envy and sabotage each other through slander, gossip, and shunning, and women also want other women’s respect and support… In addition, women, like men, have internalized sexist beliefs… We tend not to forgive women when they fail us. We tend to have more compassion for male failure or imperfection. I know this now but… I clung to my original view of women as perfect victims. Why? Because women are both oppressed and maligned and I did not want to expose us to any further harm. Because it was---and still is---problematic, even dangerous, to challenge the politically correct feminist view of women as morally superior…”

1) Converts: Anybody can be a Mormon convert, so I imagine unlike Catholicism that most people are born into, there is a need for the women in the Mormon church to establish a pecking order.

2) Plural marriage heritage: Don't forget the heritage of all those plural wives.Can you just imagine what the gossip was like then? The Mormon women probably learned from their mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers to establish a pecking order to peck the other women to death, to maintain some superiority among all the other wives to one husband. Plus, the women had to get the other women to do their dirty work for them.

In every polygamous society, and there have been many, there has always been relentless, sometimes murderous, competition between wives and/or concubines for the preference of the Lord and Master, and for first place for their own children. Of course the Old Testament is full of this drama.

I can't suppose polygamous Deseret was much better except insofar as the women stuck in the system may have been more personally humane than those of ancient times.

It's a bad system.

I heartily recommend "Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes" (Oxford University Press, 2014) by Joyce Benenson, Ph.D.; she is a psychology professor who has been studying gender-based behavioral differences for decades. The subtitle could have been "why men love team sports and women compete in relationships."

From the book jacket: "Human males form competitive groups that compete against out-groups, while human females exclude other females in their quest to find mates, female family members to invest in their children, and keep their own hearts ticking."

Message: It's not a fact that women are "less competitive than men." They're at least as competitive, but only in different forms.

I learned, too, that women account for about 65% of doctor/hospital visits, and in many cases are also responsible for a male who comes in to be seen. The only hospital department in which male patients outnumber women is usually the ER: because men don't come in "unless something has gone really wrong, like falling off a roof."

I once started a provocative rumor about how desperate I was to get laid, but then when it turned out to be true, the ladies at work held a bake sale for me and I got free pie...

Free pie eh?

Yeah, but I had to clean up afterwards.

Just the same, I'll pass, elderdog...

I worked with a "Molly Mormon" before she got married and pregnant within a month of being married. She would always tell us what moral people that Mormons were...the most moral folks in the whole world! I never met a woman who gossiped more that she did. She ended up having 5 kids in 10 years. She is of course, a stay-at-home mom and no longer working outside the home because that would be sinful. I am sure she is still slandering people left and right. I just wonder who she is gossiping about because since she is no longer in the work force? I am sure it is about her beloved Mormon brothers and sisters because that is only folks she interacts with now.

Oh, I also knew a nurse who was once a Mormon and then quit. She was a Mormon when she got married and had two children. According to the women in her "loving" Mormon ward, here is the terrible truth about her: SHE CONTINUED TO WORK FULL-TIME AS A NURSE BOTH WHEN SHE GOT MARRIED AND EVEN WORSE, AFTER SHE BORE CHILDREN!!! Here's the thing. She loved being a nurse and was good at it. She made sure her children were well-cared for. Her children grew up to be polite, kind boys. She left the church because she could not tolerate the gossip about her by these "loving" Mormon women in her ward. Who gives a rip that she continued to have a fulfilling career after marriage and children?

TMC (the Mormon church) is BUILT [and TORN DOWN] on gossip, lies, spiritual slavery, guilt, fear, superstition and one-up-manship.

It it weren't for members talking about others - and themselves - and TMC, and it's BS (BullSmith) ways and means [which is nothing], THEY WOULD HAVE NOTHING to talk about.

Even knowing I was a nevermo, mormon neighbors would gossip to me about one another. I thought it strange and very meanspirited.

My friend shared a story about the bishop storehouse with me yesterday when I called to check up on her and church and to wish her a happy new years eve. Well, apparently a year ago, some woman in the family ward she attends stopped going to church after visiting teachers told her the only reason she was in the church was because of the help she was getting from the church. That hurted the woman deeply so she stopped going. I wonder what made her visiting teachers day something like that. Any idea why? Idk what happened to make them think like that about her. All I know was that she was very hurt.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2018 07:34PM by helenm.

Man, watch where you're swinging that light saber...

I'm a "technical Nevermo," raised in Zion with Mormons all around, and I can tell you there are times I think I used to belong to the Relief Society.

Good thread, thanks.

Mormon women are in competition with each other, for the best callings, the richest men, the biggest house, the most successful children. The pressure to be perfect is so great, that they try to be more perfect than their "sisters". A good Mormon wife must be more talented, more sexy, more spiritual, more knowledgeable of the scriptures, have more children. In Mormonism, you are never enough.

It is fueled by jealousy (a sin, is it not)

The easiest way for a Mormon woman to win the competition, is to undermine the women she is competing with. Hence, the gossip, discouragement, shunning, excluding.

It took a lifetime of being a TBM woman, to understand that anyone who wants you to LOSE, is not on your side. She is not your friend, but your enemy. I was not surprise when my Mormon former ward "friends" shunned me, when I became inactive. It hurt me, until I found out on RFM that shunning was SOP with Mormons, and really nothing personal.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2018 10:30PM by janis.

Mormonism creates a weird superiority/inferiority complex since it is a works based religion that emphasizes perfection. The only way to know how you're doing in attaining perfection is to compare yourself to others. There is always someone seemingly doing better on the scale which makes you feel bad about yourself. It helps when you hear through gossip that maybe they're not so perfect after all.

But there is always someone who is seemingly doing worse and it's great to emphasize your superiority through gossip. Of course there are the clueless non-Mormons who only think their happy going about their non-Mormon lives, fair game.

It's a schizoid way to live. No wonder Utah has high anti-depressant use rates.

Haven't you heard? That's how all vetting/ 'callings', genealogy and dead folks' temple "work" gets done, through prospecting, speculating, gossip, repeated stories ad nauseam, heresy, word of mouth, etc

(someone mentioned above something about truth isn't gossip). Mormons are good at taking a true story and making it into an untrue story or exaggerated story.

Some years ago, like 25 or so, I had just started working at home as a medical transcriptionist. There was a courier who would drop off tapes at my door at 10:30 a.m. every day and pick up the ones from the day before. He was a nice looking young man. He stopped to ask a neighbor about a car that they had for sale. Next thing I know she is asking me about my "brother" who stopped by to ask about their car. She had been watching. She lived several doors down. She kept giving me little clues as to who it might be that I didn't have any idea who she was talking about. She finally said he came by at 10:30 every day. then I filled her in on who it was. I wonder how many people heard that story before I did as she was well known for gossip.

Her daughter once informed me that the other leader in YWs I was working with was flirting with my husband. I laughed at her and said I wasn't worried.