Dysfunctional Communication About Garments from the Top

Two weeks ago, when news of the new sleeveless garment design hit the internet I experienced a range of emotions. 

Happiness that a helpful change had happened. Anger that I’d spent so long justifying why I had to wear certain types of clothing to cover my garment sleeves to only have it all change now. Annoyance that I’d have to find a new way to show my nuance. 

I understood where most of those feelings were coming from. However, there was one emotion that took me a few days to understand. 

Frustration. 

Every time I went online and read reactions to this change or more stories about this change I got more and more frustrated. I figured it out after a few days.

I was frustrated because of how little communication was actually coming from the church. Like many people, I read about this change in the Salt Lake Tribune. Then I read more about it in online discussion groups. Bloggers here at Exponent and other blogs started writing about it. Instagram and TikTok chimed in.  

But did I read anything about it from the church? No. 

Adding to my frustration was the fact that General Conference had ended less than two weeks before the news about the garment design change came out in the Salt Lake Tribune. Over the last several years I’ve found that General Conference is less and less relevant to my day to day life. This whole thing with the garment change illustrates why. 

The talks at General Conference were like, “la la la everything is fine. We are going to rehash the same topics we always do. No big changes have ever happened or will ever happen. Just focus on how much you LOVE the church and how perfect it is. You can trust us to tell you everything.”

Ten days later I read about a big change to church mandated underwear in the Salt Lake Tribune. Could at least one of the talks have at least mentioned a change was coming?

I get that talking about something as sacred as garments in General Conference is probably a little weird. It might not be the best Public Relations moment to detail changes in the garment or to show a picture of garments up on the big screens in the Conference Center. 

But is it any more weird than having adult men ask other adults about what underwear they wear in order to obtain a temple recommend?

Part of me thinks that the General Authorities are cowards. They get to talk about love and compassion at General Conference. All the while they’ve written policies that require the local leaders and members to have awkward conversations and deal with the fall out from the policies. 

Even the General Authorities with the more inflammatory talks (cough Oaks cough) don’t have to deal with the nitty gritty of how their advise/doctrine/dogma impacts the day to day life of members.

It’s all feeling very dysfunctional to me. The church puts on this good looking show every six months. We are supposed to watch or listen to it so that we can hear God’s messages that we are supposed to live by. All the while, the real policies and changes that affect the actual living of our lives aren’t discussed. We find out about these changes later and then have a flurry of reactions online. The church hardly responds to the online discussion – if they respond at all. In the end we are all left feeling frustrated and the conversation just kind of gets dropped.

It’s not just garments either. As I’ve thought over some of the church’s major policy changes from the last few years I’ve realized I didn’t hear about them from the church. In most cases I heard about the changes in the Salt Lake Tribune. 

Here’s a list just off the top of my head from the past few years. 

The new exclusionary policies regarding transgender members. Any news relating to tithing. (Investment funds, lawsuits, etc.) The 2019 changes to the temple ceremony. The policy that allows civil marriages followed by a temple sealing without waiting a year. The end of the 2015 policy of exclusion. The policy that children can have an adult with them when they are interviewed by priesthood leaders.The 2024 changes to the wording of the temple recommend question about garments.

I’m deeply grateful for the Salt Lake Tribune and I love the work of Peggy Fletcher Stack and the other religion reporters. But I’m frustrated that I’m not hearing about these things from the church itself.

If the church does announce a change is usually through the Church Newsroom. But unless you are following the church’s social media accounts or getting a print subscription, the announcements can be easy to miss. For example, In October 2019 When I first read the announcement from the Church Newsroom that women could witness baptisms I immediately texted my mother in law to ask if she would want to act as a witness for an upcoming baptism in our family. Her response was something like, “Well if that turns out to be true I’d love to.” I had to explain that I’d read it in an article on the church website that was directly quoting the First Presidency. 

My husband is rarely on social media. His calling in the church doesn’t require him to read the handbook. I’m his main source of news about changes in the church. Without me relaying information I’m not sure he’d ever hear about changes. How many other members are like that? How many members really know that their children can have another adult member with them when they see the bishop? How many members know that the wording to the temple recommend question about garments has changed? How many members know that there will be sleeveless garment options available in a year?

Currently General Conference isn’t the venue for announcing policies and procedures. But maybe it could be? We already have time during conference for the statistical report. What if there was also a 30 minute segment for announcements and acknowledgements of changes.

We already have a precedent of some changes being announced in Conference. Visiting/Home Teaching changing to Ministering was announced in General Conference and there were even a few talks dedicated to how the program could work. When the temple recommend questions were updated a few years ago President Nelson gave a talk where he read each of the new questions. Could there be more talks dedicated to detailing changes?

I’d like to know that when I watch General Conference I’m getting the full picture of what is going on in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’d like to know that I won’t read a surprise story in the Salt Lake Tribune within the next month. I’d like to know that the General Authorities have talked with real members of the church about the policies and procedures that are written in the handbooks.

It’s sad that right now that feels like too much to ask. But I guess that’s what happens when you are in a dysfunctional relationship.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash