At the Old Country, they are “greatly bothered” by missionaries routinely bearing testimony at pageants and visitors centers. Religion is, you see, too sacred and private a matter to be made part of religious functions.

Mormon liberalism, like secular liberalism, tries to privatize belief and disagreements about belief. Except that in the case of Mormon liberals, the “public sphere” out of which they are trying to privatize religion is the Church itself. This is the fundamental cause of the collapse of religious liberalism in other denominations. Not because religious liberalism is actively hostile to faith, except insomuch as it pertains to sex. No, whatever you believe is fine, just so long as you keep it to yourself. But keeping your faith to yourself is just another way of saying that you don’t participate in a church.

To be fair, I don’t think most Mormon liberals are conscious that they are attacking the foundations of the Church. I think they have absorbed the liberal settlement of the church-state controversy and are instinctually applying it to our religion.