Jeremiah Clark BARBARA COPELAND: With Brother Jeremiah Clark of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. The topic that we're going to be discussing is intermarriage and interdating within the Mormon church. Okay. The interviewers are Barbara Copeland and Cory Robertson. Today is Wednesday, November 14, year 2001. Okay, so you were just telling us about this pamphlet that talks about says For The Strength of the Youth and it talks about dating. Could you just tell us? : This whole book is just a guidebook all the youth of the church are to be familiar with this. There's a little pocket, edited version that they can carry in their purse or their wallet, and part of the thing that is of interest in addition to books and magazines and dress and so forth there's a little section that gives guidance on dating. One of the guidelines that many members of the church hold to is that we don't start pairing off in official dates until age sixteen. When we do begin dating, we go in groups or in double dates. The counsel is to avoid pairing off with one partner and make sure your parents become acquainted with those you date. Later the time will come for you to choose just one. Plan positive and constructive activities when you are together. Do things that help you to get to know each other. Be careful to go to places where there is a good environment and where you won't be faced with temptation. That temptation includes not only sexual immorality but drugs or alcohol. Because dating is a preparation for marriage date only those who have high standards. Respect your standards and whose company you can maintain the standards of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So those are the dating guidelines. I could just talk, but I don't know if I'll hit your points of interest. So why don't I let you guide the discussion. BC: Okay, Cory did you want me to ask. CORY ROBERTSON: I'll start unless- BC: It doesn't matter. CR: Okay. Well we'll go back and forth. How about that? Okay my first question is do you think it's more common for young people to date within their faith regarding LDS members? JC: I think LDS members most commonly date within their faith because of this guideline of high standards. Now that's not always true. There's certainly, my own children have dated people who are not of our faith, but they're people who have the same standards of sexual abstinence, don't consume alcohol and things like that. But it is certainly more common to date within the church.
BC: Okay, can you tell, well from what I understand most of the singles they only have, they can only draw from a certain pool meaning the church, the ward that they belong to. So I'm just wondering if they can only draw from that particular church as far as prospective husband or wife. JC: I think that's a misunderstanding. BC: Is it. JC: If I'm understanding what you're saying, there is absolutely no restriction in the church of who you can date, geographically or--. So what happens is within our congregations you get to know the people in your congregation much more than you would somebody in another congregation because you're with them every Sunday. But we have, we have lots of students here who are dating people from Raleigh, from Pennsylvania, from there's just absolutely no restriction whatsoever on who they can date. BC: So there's, so it's not discouraged for them to visit other churches and other wards. JC: Not at all. CR: Did you say it's encouraged or discouraged? BC: Discouraged. JC: It is not discouraged. BC: Okay. JC: It is not necessarily encouraged because we worship in our own congregation, but you would find these we have here a singles congregation, and that singles congregation is much more, not only transient, they come and go but from week to week because they're attending all over the place. Sometimes they attend with their parents in Charlotte. Sometimes they come here. Sometimes they'll go the meeting in Raleigh because one of their friends is speaking in Raleigh. So it's a very from week to week the numbers and the people who are there vary greatly because this group, see in my, in the congregation that I go to it's much more stable because the families that go there kind of go there every week. But these students really do travel and go to different meetings all the time, and that is not discouraged in the least. BC: I think probably where the misconception comes in is because-the members are encouraged to stay within their ward, or they're assigned a particular ward to go to church. Does that then mean that they're not supposed to attend another ward on a regular basis. That they just have to stay within that one 2
particular ward that's within their geographic district. So that's probably where the misconception comes in that is that if they're assigned a ward, then it potentially means that the singles that are in that ward would have to get up together. It just limits their availabilities in other words. JC: I don't see it limiting in any way other than any other kind of organization or school. I mean to me it's like saying the kids at UNC can only date UNC kids. I mean, they can date Raleigh kids. There's no restriction whatsoever, but if you were to look at numbers, you'd probably find that UNC kids marry UNC kids because they're here together. Does that make sense? CR: Yes. BC: Yeah. JC: There's absolutely, there would be no more restriction in our church from dating someone outside the ward as it would be for UNC to date somebody from Greensboro. BC: Okay. Okay. JC: You do bring up the boundary issue, and this is a little different I think from some other churches. Is the church is we want to have congregations for wherever there are people. So it started in Salt Lake City where we had lots of people. In Salt Lake City you cannot have how can I say this, you have four or five congregations that are in a very small area. So in order to structure that they were, the boundaries were drawn up and said okay those of you who live on these blocks will meet at nine o'clock. Those of you who live on these blocks will meet in the same building at twelve o'clock. That way everybody could meet for church. We do that here. Now in Chapel Hill we just recently split the Chapel Hill ward. There were seven hundred families in the Chapel Hill ward. So seven hundred families is a lot for one shepherd we call him our bishop to work with. So the ward was split. The way it was split was geographically. Our priesthood leader stood up and said okay everyone who lives south of Fifty-four will be in the second ward. Everyone who lives north of Fifty-four will be in the first ward. There are some people who are having a little they're saying all my friends live on the other side. Those people are in fact attending the ward they want to. BC: So they're not, it's not- JC: Nobody is ever cut off or you can't attend. If some of our students here didn't want to attend here, they wanted to attend with their parents in Charlotte, they can do that. 3
BC: Because I attended that Sunday church- JC: When it was split. BC: Right. There was very, very a very sad sacrament meeting because they really didn't want to go. They wanted to stay. JC: Well, we are used to meeting as a family. You feel like this is our family. But seven hundred people is just unwieldy. So we have to divide it. Now seven hundred families don't attend every Sunday because we have different levels of activity. But we feel that the bishop and we feel that we as members of the church are responsible for our brothers and sisters. So we want that to be a size that we can handle. So instead of having one bishop, now we have two bishops. One over the Chapel Hill first ward and one over the Chapel Hill second ward. CR: Since you deal with young people so much I want to know how you counsel youth who are interested in dating outside the church and is it discouraged or is it just like an individual basis of dating counseling? JC: It is. I'm sorry you asked me personally what I do. I think what I do is what the church would do. That is we discourage dating outside the church. The reason for that is because the highest goal in the church the greatest blessings that we believe come from our God is to have an eternal family to have a family that is sealed together in the temple. You have to have two members of the church to do that. So that's the reason we encourage our dating to, and as it's stated here. Now it would shift a little bit. You noticed that when we read here about teenage dating there was nothing really mentioned about of your own faith because the expectation is that the teenagers aren't pairing off to get married. But if I were to counsel some of my people here who are now at the marriageable age, I would encourage them to date those who they want, could take to the temple and have a temple marriage. BC: Okay, well do you think that it's highly probably that even if they did date outside of their faith that they could convert? JC: Um hmm. About one in eight. BC: One out of eight. CR: Convert through a partner who is BC: So that would seem kind of risky. 4
JC: As a parent it seems risky. As a parent of my own children it seems risky. We do believe though that that is one of the ways which the Lord has designed to bring people in. We feel like if that's one of, something that our missionary efforts are focused on is these families that one is a member and one is not. There actually are a sizable number of conversions that come from that circumstance. But because of the risk of the other thing happening is of your son and daughter leaving the church it's, we discourage it. BC: Right. Right. I didn't look at it that way. That it could go the other way. I guess because in my mind I'm thinking they are so strong, the Latter-day Saints are so strong in their faith it just really never crossed my mind that they could be pulled away potentially. CR: Yeah and also I always thought that they were so like evangelizing like trying to to convert that they would want their members to date outside to convert the non-members but no. Oh okay. JC: Let me give you just a little story. We had a girl here who started dating a member of the church in high school. He was a member. She was not. Parents are concerned they're dating. She's a cute girl. She's got high standards. The parents said well we'd like for you to bring her to church. If you're going to date her, she can come to church to see how we believe During the course of their courtship she decided to join the church. Then he went on his mission. He was gone two years and she continued to kind of learn and grow. During this time her mother was baptized. When he came home from his mission, they were actually married and they were married in the temple. According, from our point of view it's a very happy story, happy ending. CR: That one date. JC: But it wasn't, it his going after her certainly had nothing to do with evangelizing. It really had nothing to do with trying to I'm going to be interested in her to convert her. He was interested in her, and his parents wanted her to be exposed to what is so precious to us. CR: Right. That's a good story. BC: Wanted to know, do you have an idea of the percentage of intermarried couples that are within the Mormon faith? CR: No. JC: I do not. 5
BC: Or maybe roughly. CR: Maybe guess within your ward. BC: Like one quarter, one third. CR: Not that many. BC: One eighth. JC: ltd be, I really think if you're talking about intermarriages in the church as a whole. Now you realize that the majority of the church is in Utah. I shouldn't say that, but there are a lot more members there. So race issues become very different. It would definitely be less than one percent church wide. CR: Wow. JC: But the statistic probably isn't all that meaningful because it really doesn't give us a picture of what's happening. I think you also know that the church's relationship with blacks has dramatically changed since 1978. CR: '78. BC: Right. JC: See prior to 1978 the counsel would be not to even, not to date inter with blacks because they can't marry in the temple. BC: Right. JC: But when that revelation came that that was allowed, then it changed that. In fact I was in Roxboro a couple of weeks ago, and I met a very lovely man who told me he was the first black man to be sealed in the Oakland temple in 1978. Kind of told me that story and was proud of it, and he's in his seventies now. He's just a delightful man. CR: Okay are there any other church functions or activities that seem to encourage dating in the faith. I know for one thing you have something called the singles ward. So it's kind of like push to start that phase of life I guess. When do people enter the singles ward or how old is it? JC: Singles wards are created when there's a need. They are not standard everywhere. CR: Oh did not know that. JC: At Brigham Young University you have probably I really believe you have four thousand student wards. You have a hundred seventeen student stakes. Are you familiar with the term stake and 6
ward? At Brigham Young University where there are twenty some odd thousand students and most of them are members of the church there are literally four thousand congregations on that-well it wouldn't be four thousand congregations for twenty thousand people. Well I guess there could be because there's three or four hundred to a congregation. So that would be that many. We have singles wards here in Chapel Hill, in Raleigh, in Charlotte, and I believe that's all we have in North Carolina. Those are the only singles wards BC: Wow not Greensboro or what about Fort Bragg because I understand that's a big JC: There's a military ward, but it is not-there are a lot of married people in that ward also. CR: It would just be a bunch of men. JC: There is a military ward at Fort Bragg, but it is not a singles ward. BC: It's more it would be more of a married. JC: So where there is a need there are singles wards. There are actually singles wards and young single wards and this is-here these four wards in North Carolina are all young single adult wards. They are for eighteen to thirty-year-olds who want to be in the ward. Now they choose to be in the ward. They're not assigned to be in the ward. But they choose to be in the ward, and they could choose to attend one of the other congregations locally. I don't know if I answered your question. CR: 0 BC: So now what is the other kind of ward. You said there, one is a young ward so what JC: What I was going to say is there is not a single adult ward. I'm just trying to think. There are ethnic wards. You have Spanish speaking wards. There is a ward that is being thought about being created in Burlington which is a Spanish speaking ward. In Los Angeles you have Vietnamese wards, and so the congregations are created to meet the needs of the people. On a college campus that's usually young single adults. So that's why you have them here and in Raleigh. They're usually kind of associated with the University. We have one in Charlotte. I don't believe there is one in Winston-Salem or Greensboro. I don't think, there are several regular congregations but not a singles. Now as you get up to Virginia in the DC area is a huge concentration of young single adult Latter-day Saints. There are dozens of young single adult congregations in the greater DC area. 7
BC: Wow. Okay. Can you tell us, now one of the things that I'm going to be needing to focus on for my participation in this particular project is about the old and the new with regards to intermarriage and interdating. I went to do some research to see if I could find information about the old, the old way of how the Latter-day Saints went about marriage. Was there any interdating or intermarriage back in the pioneer days? JC: See you've got to understand that the early days of this church were in Utah and in, there was just not an opportunity for interracial dating because there was no interracial going on. You had a white state. CR: Not interracial, interfaith. JC: Oh I'm sorry. I thought you were asking about racial. BC: Did I say that? CR: No, that's okay. BC: I might have. But that's easily confused. JC: I'll tell you the reason I was confused on it was when you were saying the old and the new. There is an old and a new when it comes to interracial because of 1978. With interfaith I don't know if there's an old and a new. I don't know how to distinguish that. CR: We were thinking that during the nineteenth century that it was like what we had thought before that they were trying to evangelize. So you'd have Mormons that wanted to bring people into the faith, so they would marry that way and now that it's discouraged to try to stay in it. No. JC: That's never been the case. BC: Even back in the pioneering days when they did have the polygamy and stuff like that there still wasn't the interfaith. JC: No. Now there is some very bad press sometimes Brigham Young is going to take my daughters away. He's come to proselytize my daughters and marry them into a polygamous group. That was never an effort of the church. Polygamy was to take care of those who needed to be taken care of. There was never a time in the church where it was part of our missionary efforts to go out and find a wife. In fact it only has been in recent times meaning the last forty or fifty years that young men have gone on missions. In the early days of the church they were married men. They did not come back with another 8
wife or even because they were married. They went out to up and through the 19-1 would say up until 1920-ish maybe up until the Second World War most of our missionaries were married men. CR: Okay. What would happen in the afterlife with bi-faith partners, bi-faith couples? Well first of all I know you can't get married in the temple with a bi-faith, but if you had a couple who were Catholic and the wife converted to Mormonism okay and then they both pass away. We still have one Mormon and one Catholic. JC: I thought you said she converted. CR: She did. She did. JC: So you wouldn't have bi-faith. You'd have two Mormons, right. CR: No, no, no. We still have just her Mormon and him Catholic. So what happens? JC: I can answer the question, but I don't think bi-faith really comes into it. The way we would answer the question is we believe that our Father in heaven and Jesus Christ have said come follow me and do the things that I've asked you to do and you'll be saved with me in the highest glory. Now you know Latter-day Saints have unique beliefs about there are many mansions and that we will go to different mansions. Now that's biblical from the New Testament. Jesus says I will prepare a mansion for you and we believe that we will be given, a mansion is allegorical. There's a house, but we believe that there will be, we're going to receive according to what we have done. One of the things that we understand to be exalted in the highest degree of our heavenly Father's kingdoms that we need to be married in the temple. So if I'm not married in the temple, it doesn't matter if I'm not married because I married a member of the church and we didn't go to the temple. Or I married a non-christian and didn't go to the temple or if I married a Catholic and didn't go to the temple. The answer is the same. BC: If you're not married in the temple- JC: If you're not married in the temple, you don't go to the highest degree of-now we do also believe that that opportunity will be afforded to married people beyond this life. So our hope would be and we all, there's not very many members of the church that don't have relatives that are in a situation like you described. Our hope and prayer is that that person who for whatever reasons has not chosen to be baptized into the Mormon faith in this life will one day accept it and they'll be together. CR: So they technically can be together. They just can't be in the highest level. 9
JC: Well, we believe that when you know that most faiths when you are married, you're married for time. When you die, it's over with. Paul Harvey mentioned today that the longest married couple has been eighty-three years. Okay. When you die, it's over. Well, we believe that the Lord has said I will recognize your marriage beyond death that that-but in order to qualify for that, you need to get married in the temple. So if I'm not married in the temple, I don't believe that my marriage does last beyond death. BC: Even though you are a Latter-day Saint. JC: Even though I'm a Latter-day Saint. The temple marriage is what makes it beyond this life. That's why it's so valuable. BC: That's the passport in other words. JC: It's the covenant. It's we covenant with God, we covenant with God that we will stay with this spouse through sickness. We will support them. We sometimes at the church we talk about the difference between a covenant marriage and another kind of marriage because in a covenant marriage we just don't abandon it. Divorce rates are much lower for people who are married in the temple than people who are not. So this is it's very sacred to us. We believe that part of that covenant then God will honor that marriage in the next life. BC: Okay, I think you might have answered this one. What or does the church offer counseling to newly weds or couples who are interdating? Like is that a pre like a mandatory thing before they get married. Is it something that they would have to seek counsel before they can be married in the temple. CR: They couldn't be married in the temple if they were bi-faith. JC: Well, let me answer that a couple of ways. Okay. BC: Yeah, yeah. That's true. JC: Everyone who goes through the temple not only goes through a few counseling or sessions, but they have been preparing their whole life for that. If I were to join the church, the church has established a time period of at least a year before I can go to the temple. So I would be learning that whole year before I could even go to the temple. So we believe that those who go to the temple even though we may not call it a counseling session they are prepared for marriage through the courses. Through what's happening in the church and preparing to go to the temple prepares us for a celestial or we use the term celestial or a covenant marriage. Now for those who are choosing to not get married in the temple for 10
whatever reason whether they are both members who are not ready to go the temple or whether one is a member and one is not a member or if neither are members but their families might be or they've got a friend who is a bishop then those people could be married by our bishops. The bishop would counsel with them and take them through some things and counsel with them before they were married. CR: Are they married in the church? JC: They can be married anywhere. We've had several marriages right out on this lawn. We've had some in our chapel. Our bishops are authorized by the state to marry just like a minister, a priest or a judge. But those marriages like we believe all other marriages end at death. That belief that marriage ends at death is accepted by most people who are married. CR: That's really interesting. BC: So and then too children that come in also those out of those particular marriages that are not in the temple, those children are not will not make it over either in other words. JC: I'm sorry. I don't know what you're asking me. BC: Okay, the couples that are not married in the temple and may be married anywhere else well elsewhere the children that they have will they not make it over into the celestial world? JC: Well I can't say that. They may very well or they may not. It depends on what they choose to do. There is no-the fact that I was married in the temple and my children are born in the covenant is the terminology that we use does not ensure that my children are going to be saved in God's kingdom. They have to choose. If my children were not born in the covenant, they still have to choose. We do believe that there are blessings and attention that our children get from God if they're born in the covenant. We believe that he just like in the Old Testament the Lord talks about how is arm is always outstretched to Israel. His covenant children, we believe that's the same thing. We do believe there's great blessing in being born in the covenant, but it does not ensure the salvation of the children nor does not being born in the covenant disqualify. Most of the members of the church today are converts to the church. Meaning that their parents were not members of the church. CR: Let's see. I have well two more questions but the bi-faith couples do you think they are met with any resistance by the other LDS members like they started interdating and ended up marrying a person who refused to convert? Do you think that that would be sort of a taboo thing to do? Is it common? 11
JC: It happens more often than you'd like it to happen. But I do think now you're evangelizing comes into play. If there is a member of the church and a non-member of the church in a household, a husband and wife, those people are not shunned in any way. They are embraced in the hope that the nonmember spouse will join the church. So in that situation where they're already married then you would have these missionary evangelizing efforts. BC: Right. Okay. () What would you say some of the obstacles an intermarried couple would have to face either within the church or outside the church? BC: Yeah. Interfaith. I'm sorry. Yeah. JC: The challenges that they will have are are they going to raise their children in the church. Are they going to be fully participating in the church or not. There are some very sad stories that I'm personally acquainted with women who married non-married men outside the faith and then have years and years of heartache because they were not really able to be fully immersed into the church because they don't have a husband who will participate with them. It's not that the church shuns them. The church would welcome them. But it's the dynamics of the couple itself that one of them wants to do something and the other one doesn't that causes the problem. I would think that is true also with marrying if a Mormon was to marry a strong Catholic. Then you have to decide when are you going to baptized your children, who's going to baptize the children and there would be some conflict. CR: This is my last question. I hadn't even written this down, but during the course of the conversation I became interested in what about interracial dating? Is that starting, I know that like in some southern Christian denominations it just, it's not a doctrine and it's not preached that you can't or you can, but it's just accepted that you don't because of the southern culture and things like that. Is that the JC: A faith intermarried couple, bi-faith not biracial. What do you- prevalent- JC: No. I don't think you really, I don't think especially in Utah you really don't have the southern culture. In Utah this is hard for people who weren't there to really believe, but during the '60s and '70s when you had so much racial tensions and I was just listening to a thing on NPR last night about Jim Crow laws and things like that. Those things were completely foreign to Utah because we just, we never had to segregate our schools because they were all white. It's only been in recent years that we're 12
having the interracial mixes. I think you have people from the old, I'll say the old and the new here. I think my parents and my wife's parents would be very uncomfortable with a biracial marriage. I think people my age many of them would be very accepting of it. I think it has much less to do with church doctrine than society. temple. BC: Or nostalgia. JC: Than the cultural norms. CR: But the church doesn't just claims no~ BC: What is the church's stance? CR: They don't have one. JC: The church doesn't have one. The church's stands are marry someone you can marry in the CR: You can marry anybody JC: You can marry a Vietnamese, black. You can marry Indian. That's what it is. There are, now the church would counsel and this is not doctrine of the church, but the church would counsel there are challenges to mixed cultures. My daughter told us one time she wanted to marry a European. She says I want to marry someone from Europe. Well we're white. Most Europeans are white. But I would have the same counsel for her as I would if she were to marry some other race because the cultures are so different that she's going to have obstacles in her marriage that if she could marry somebody from middle class Chapel Hill, it's going to be easier. That's, that would be I think the only racial questions is when the cultures are different it introduces obstacles into the marriage. BC: Right. Especially I think one that would be even more clear of, well one picture that comes to mind is like with marrying perhaps maybe someone of the Jewish faith because in some circles they say well Judaism is not necessarily you're born Jewish. So there's this dichotomy between well is it a religion or is it a culture? Is it something you're born into? If you're not born Jewish and you decide to want to practice the Jewish faith then can you really say you're Jewish, that sort of thing. So yeah. It kind of cuts into the boundaries of that person's culture. How they, what they were born into. JC: The reason this issue comes up in the Church of Jesus Christ or the Mormon church is because our church is so much a part of our daily life. In fact our thinking and the spectacles which we see 13
the world through are Mormon, are Mormon glasses. So it's, when you choose to marry someone who you are to become one with and you don't share those same visions, you don't share those same goals and aspirations, then it's a real challenge. It's not like and I don't mean to denigrate to any other faith, but it's much different than just going to church on Sunday. If I were, there are some faiths that are, sociologically they describe them as high demand and low demand faiths. Mormons would be considered a high demand faith. We're doing a lot. A lot is expected. There are low demand Christian faiths. I would think that intermarriages between low demand faiths would be much easier because I could go to church on Sunday without my spouse. I can, if that's all it was, that's not going to create hardships. But when I am contributing my income, ten percent of my income if my wife is not supporting that, that's going to cause some hardships. BC: Well, I did ask all of my questions. Did you? JC: Well, I think you have chosen something that's-good luck with this. BC: We really appreciate your helping us out with this. Very grateful and appreciative. Just wanted to say thank you and you've really enlightened us on the topic. END OF INTERVIEW Transcribed by L. Altizer, January 27, 2002 14