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Staying on the Old Ship Zion: Emerging Fractures and Divisions
A few years ago, Elder M. Russell Ballard spoke of the Old Ship Zion1, a metaphor for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints coined by President Brigham Young. I’d like to merge the notion of staying on the Old Ship Zion with 4 Nephi 1:17: “There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God” (emphasis added).
I speak solely from my experience and perspective, but as I have sought to stay on the Old Ship Zion (hereafter referred to as the OSZ) over the last several years, I see factions or -ites emerging that I believe will cause too many to jump ship. While it may be foolish to try and define coherent subgroups within a body of over 16 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I would like to discuss eight. It was awkward to try and refer to all as some form of -ites, so I introduced that as concept, but didn’t use it. Furthermore, these groups are not static, nor mutually exclusive. Members can belong to more than one group and can shift membership between groups over time and depending on the issue at hand.
Let’s call the first group Striving Progressives. These individuals are earnest followers of a brown-eyed, non-white Jesus. They want to stay on the Old Ship Zion but are distressed with some of the past destinations and travelogues of the OSZ (particularly those they perceived to be persistently glossed over). In addition, they want to encourage a broad and transparent dialogue about the present accommodations on the OSZ for women, Church members of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals. These individuals keep pushing the crew to examine its course, its history, and remodel the ship.
The second group could be considered the Strident Progressives. We might think of them as striving progressives with an edge. They are less patient with the crew than striving progressives. They keep putting issues they struggle with on their metaphorical shelf (“I don’t know how to process this issue, so I’m just going to put it on a shelf and not deal with it right now”). The more that happens, the closer their shelves to get the breaking point. Some strident progressives wrestle daily to avoid bailing from the ship.
