Scary Stories to Tell about the Saints (+Utah)
It's remarkable how far from reality popular, take-for-granted, resentment-reinforcing narratives can become.
Three years ago, we decided to do a Halloween-themed series at Public Square Magazine exploring all the chilling things people say about Utah, in particular. While there are many such tales to choose from, we focused on the following four:
Are Utahns Uniquely Drawn to Pornography? Some still like to claim that Utah has a uniquely high rate of porn use in the nation—purportedly related to cultural norms that “suppress” and “shame” sexual expression. Yet as I pointed out in this article, this popular story only survives out of widespread ignorance over the science of pornography itself.
Do Utahns Struggle With Body Image More Than Others? In parallel to the “uniquely drawn to pornography” story is the “uniquely drawn to plastic surgery” tale about Utah. Once again, the preponderance of the available evidence – especially when carefully reviewed, as Meagan Koehler does here – isn’t so convenient and favorable to this increasingly popular narrative.
Are Religious LGBT Youth in Utah More (or Less) Prone to Suicidality? Tom Stringham argues here that the popular narrative that teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ are causing suicidality among LGBT youth is unsubstantiated. New research, showing a negative association between Church membership and suicidality in these youth, suggests the possibility that the opposite is true (I would add that this has been confirmed even more by additional research since).
Are Utahns More Depressed Than Everyone Else? You’ve probably heard somewhere – from someone – that Utahns are far more likely to be depressed. You probably have not, however, heard about the broader picture of research that contradicts that especially popular Scary Story about Utah (including in additional analyses emerging since this article). This is another good article by an especially thoughtful mental health professional, Mark Duke.
A year later, we decided to pick up the same theme again in the wake of the Under the Banner of Heaven defamation (which I reviewed in detail here). In “Scary Stories To Tell About The Saints,” we summarized just a few of the many frightening tales being told about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That included the following five chilling tales:
The Saints aren’t really loving, even if they pretend to be.
All the many joyful truth claims about life, eternity, and God are really just deceptions—and nothing more.
The desire to share the gospel with the world reflects motives that are far more sinister.
Living the gospel will make you more empty, less happy and just really stressed out.
Passionate faith is ultimately pathological and predisposes violence.
However true it is that individual deviations always exist, none of these patterns are even remotely true in the aggregate, and not even for the bare majority of Latter-day Saints.
Hopefully good-hearted people will see past this kind of anti-faith propaganda. One day, we won’t have to deal with the onslaught of public lies swirling about anything that matters, including faith.
In the meanwhile, I want to be among those on record pushing back on the deception. Above all, in whatever issue we’re talking about - even and especially if it’s something we feel strongly about - may we never stop seeking the full truth, and nothing but that truth.