this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
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I really cannot blame anyone for the confusion because a lot of this comes from the LDS Church itself and their often confusing clarifications of their positions. Like with caffeine specifically they have a long history of forbidding its use and then suddenly they reinterpreted it the way you’re suggesting. I’d say that’s fairly atypical for most religions nowadays and it’s a unique aspect of the LDS church that their interpretations are fluid like that.
The alternative for most other religions in the US is just that they never get specific and so most members hold conflicting views and interpretations. Both of the techniques I find very odd since you’d think that these differences would have faith based answers, but instead appear almost bureaucratic in nature
I had to think about this. I can’t seem to find any articles in a quick search where church leaders (a Prophet or Apostle) explicitly forbade its use. I have, however, found many excerpts where leaders who do not sit at the head (Quorum of the Seventy, BIshop, etc) have made statements warning against it or even flat out saying that members should not ingest it.
Given the structure and lack of corrective statements coming from above, I would attribute the confusion to local and regional leaders being overzealous by including caffeine explicitly in their teachings. Some have worded things in a manner I would find accurate, such as “high-dose caffeinated energy drinks” or “excessive soda consumption which results in high caffeine and sugar intake.” Others though explicitly call out caffeine as an “evil,” describing experiences with caffeine withdrawals or members deciding to not ingest alcohol, nicotine, nor caffeine. These mentions seem to have drummed up confusion primarily in the 80s (a lot of “Letter to the Editor” publications from this period seem to have been back-and-forth arguments among members, lol).
Initially I didn’t think the history is as “long” as you claimed, but then I realized that the 80s was just forty years ago, and with some results of the topic dating as far back as the 70s, it would mean it’s been an intra-member debate for almost half a century. And half a century is practically a lifetime 😖
Hey, I clearly remember that there was only caffeine-free Coke at Ricks College (apparently now re-branded as BYU-Idaho), and it was a Big Fucking Deal when they started allowing Coca-Cola in the campus stores and dining hall. So even if it wasn't "official", it was a very clear cultural issue, to the point where I don't think that most people could have drawn a line between what was official doctrine, and what was commonly accepted as doctrine.
There also wasn't an internet at the time, so members couldn't readily find some of the information about the nitty gritty.
Oh most certainly. I attended BYU Provo and there was a lot of effort from students to allow the sale of caffeinated soda on campus, but the belief was that the university was holding out only because a large number of alumni might stop donating if it were to occur.
(This was more recent though.)
The culture amongst members can and often will have items that seem to go against or misinterpret official doctrine. I don’t disagree that the church would need to reiterate the doctrine to clear that up for people. What I personally don’t know is how often is appropriate for such corrections to take place. If you correct them too often they may choose to not seek out answers themselves but instead wait for a leader to explain it to them, which runs against the teaching of proactive scripture study.
Ok, I should stop there. Starting to nitpick human nature as though I’m any better (and we know that’s not fucking true in the slightest, lol)
The church has tended to tread very, very lightly on what they're willing to declare to be doctrine, and what they aren't, because they're aware of how bad it looks when they have to walk doctrine back. The November policy, for instance, was explicitly called out as being revelation from god (via Russel Nelson, in 2016), but the church had to walk it back in 2019 because they were hemorrhaging members and getting incredibly bad press. (Plus, the whole article of faith thing about, "we believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression" is kind of undermined by not letting children with gay parents be baptized.)
As long as it's dogma rather than doctrine, the church has the benefits of members conforming, without the same risk of blowback. That is, if/when it's necessary to roll something back, it's much easier to say that it was never doctrine in the first place, and that the mind of god hasn't changed.