My letter to the stake pres.

Dear President Rowley,

After spending last evening praying and thinking about the talk you gave in stake conference yesterday, I feel a strong urge to write you a letter and express my concern over the words you shared with members of your stake.
First of all, I feel it is inappropriate and uncalled for to speak of your sexual relations with your wife from the pulpit. I guarantee that it made most everyone in the congregation feel awkward to hear of your touching her “sacred parts,” not to mention how she felt as she sat on the stand.
The one sentence in which you referred to that is of course a minor issue and not my primary concern. My main concern lies in the opinion you expressed about the consequence of sexual sin. We all realize sexual sin is gravely wrong and messing around with such a major sin is dangerous and leads to great heartache. There are many in our stake that I’m sure can attest to the pain of repentance that comes with confessing and cleansing yourself from such a mistake. However, you implied that once a person has even touched another inappropriately before marriage, then they are not to be trusted by their spouse. Although I may be wrongly interpreting your teachings, it seemed to me as well as others you were espousing that once you made a mistake it could never be undone. The doctrine of the Church teaches the opposite; if full repentance is sought and granted, the sin is forgiven and forgotten and should no longer be remembered or dwelt upon by the now-worthy individual. You expressed the thought that if you are pure and unsexual during courtship and engagement, you are completely able to be trusted not to have extramarital relations in the future. By trying to encourage the congregation to remain pure, I think you ostracized those who have made mistakes in the past. I think the subject of repentance was talked about too briefly; while you mentioned it in just a few sentences, I think it’s the focal point of this discussion. Yes, perhaps some of us have fallen, but we still have great hope for our future and especially our relationship with our eternal companion.
Another problem I wanted to address was your statistic that 40 percent of marriages in the Church end in divorce because of pornography. I asked several others afterwards just to see if I misunderstand what you said, but they all verified what I heard. I hope you meant that 40 percent of marriages that end in the Church are a result of pornography. The statistic that I heard is an inaccurate and exaggerated statistic because not even 40 percent of marriages in the Church end in divorce; the official rate as established by Professor Daniel K. Judd, a professor at BYU and member of the Sunday school general presidency, is around 6% of temple marriages.
The last question I want to ask you is this: Where has all the doctrine gone? Whatever happened to speaking of Christ? To quote the scriptures: “And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ… that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins” (2 Nephi 25:26). In short, stake conference left me feeling frustrated and confused as opposed to uplifted.
Moreover, I was not the only one who left stake conference upset. I spoke with several others including my roommates who also were a bit apprehensive about your statements, which I can only see as your opinion and are in no way Church doctrine. While I do not seek to undermine your authority or “steady the ark,” I just could not contain my sentiments and felt you should know the concerns of your constituents.

Kind regards,
Caitlin Carroll