Greenhalgh (2026)

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<h1 style="color:white; text-align:center">Jacques Ellul, Platforms, and Latter Day Saint Technical Responses to COVID-19</h1>
<h3 style="color:white">Spencer P. Greenhalgh, PhD<br>     School of Information Science, University of Kentucky
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<a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work">spencergreenhalgh.com/work</a>
<br>     
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<a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="mailto:spencer.greenhalgh@uky.edu">spencer.greenhalgh@uky.edu</a>
</h3>

<p style="color:white"> slides: <a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work/_mssa_2026_ellul.html">https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work/_mssa_2026_ellul.html</a></p>

???

Good morning! My name is Spencer Greenhalgh, and I am an associate professor of information communication technology at the University of Kentucky. This morning, I'll be presenting on "Jacques Ellul, Platforms, and Latter Day Saint Technical Responses to COVID-19," using "Latter Day Saint" here in a broad, multidenominational sense.

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# some background

???

I want to start with a little bit of background to how I got to this presentation.

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## "Social media research is predominantly focused on quantitative case studies that lack grounding in social theory. Most approaches in Internet Studies that consider themselves to have theory foundations are limited to providing definitions of key categories or are purely micro-theoretical. They ignore the embeddedness of communication processes into society as totality."

Fuchs, C. (2017). From digital positivism and administrative big data analytics towards critical digital and social media research! *European Journal of Communication*, *27*(1), 37-49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323116682804

???

I've been doing research on technology and Mormonism since 2017 or 2018, and I've generally been a data-first researcher, identifying a phenomenon, collecting data, and doing some exploration.

I think that is a perfectly fine and very productive way of doing internet research, including in Mormon Studies, but I've also been sensitive to critiques of internet research as insufficiently concerned with theory, and I've appreciated the work of media scholars like Gavin Feller and Mason Kamana Allred who have framed Mormonism and technology within these larger social contexts.

So, my presentation today is an effort to see if I can follow in their footsteps, exercise some underdeveloped theoretical muscles, and consider how Mormonism and the internet fit into bigger picture questions.

---

background-color: gray

# on COVID-19

???

To do that, I want to look at an example from the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. More particularly, I want to take some baby steps toward trying to explain why two Latter Day Saint denominations took two different approaches to digital technologies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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<table>
	<tr>
		<td>
			<a title="Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_Lake_Temple,_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg"><img height = 400, alt="Salt Lake Temple" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Salt_Lake_Temple%2C_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg"></a>
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		<td>
			<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg#/media/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7e/IndependenceTemple.jpg/1280px-IndependenceTemple.jpg" height = 400 alt="File:IndependenceTemple.jpg"></a>
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	<tr>
		<td>
			<p style = "font-size:10px"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_Lake_Temple,_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg">The Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Diliff">Diliff</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0</a></p>
		</td>
		<td>
			<p style = "font-size:10px"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg">The Community of Christ Independence Temple in Independence, Missouri</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jonathunder">Jonathunder</a> is licensed under the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html">GNU Free Documentation License</a></p>
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>

???

Within the broader Latter Day Saint tradition, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is by far the largest denomination, with the Missouri-based Community of Christ (previously known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) coming in at a distant second.

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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_Lake_City,_Utah_(2021)_-_242.jpg#/media/File:Salt_Lake_City,_Utah_(2021)_-_242.jpg"><img src="https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Salt_Lake_City%2C_Utah_%282021%29_-_242.jpg/1280px-Salt_Lake_City%2C_Utah_%282021%29_-_242.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail" alt="File:Salt Lake City, Utah (2021) - 242.jpg" height="500" ></a><p style= "font-size:10px"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104982881">Salt Lake City, Utah (2021) - 242</a>, by <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Another_Believer" title="User:Another Believer">Another Believer</a>, is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0" title="Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>.</p>

???

In response to COVID-19, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints moved its General Conferences to broadcast-only events.

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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Auditorium_(Community_of_Christ)_P5300337.JPG#/media/File:Auditorium_(Community_of_Christ)_P5300337.JPG"><img src="https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Auditorium_%28Community_of_Christ%29_P5300337.JPG/1280px-Auditorium_%28Community_of_Christ%29_P5300337.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail" alt="File:Auditorium (Community of Christ) P5300337.JPG" height="500"></a><p style="font-size:10px"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Auditorium_(Community_of_Christ)_P5300337.JPG">Auditorium (Community of Christ), Independence, MO)</a>, by <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Chris_Light" title="User:Chris Light">Chris Light</a>, is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0" title="Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>.</p>

???

In contrast, Community of Christ delayed its 2022 World Conference (the first since the emergence of COVID-19) rather than move it to an online event.

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<p style="font-size:10px">Oil paintings in the Community of Christ temple depicting sacraments common to both Latter Day Saint traditions. Retrieved from <a href="https://cofchrist.org/temple-tour/">https://cofchrist.org/temple-tour/</a></p>

???

However, in the context of the sacred rites of these traditions, Community of Christ allowed communion services to happen over Zoom, and it was the LDS Church that insisted that the sacrament only be administered in person.

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???

So, how is it that two traditions both clearly willing to adopt digital technologies and both drawing from the same historical foundations responded so differently in adopting those technologies in terms of conferences and sacred rites?

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# on platforms

???

Drawing from internet studies, my first instinct is to explain this in terms of "platforms."

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# "The platform has emerged as the endemic form of online enterprise, which is weird, because **another word for *platform* is *middleman***."

Doctorow, C. (2025). *Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.* New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

???

Writing for a lay audience, the technology activist Cory Doctorow (2025) has suggested that the simplest synonym for "platform" is "middleman," emphasizing the ways that these technologies not only facilitate but also actively intervene in social practices. This mediation may create tensions in the context of religious institutions, who may be wary of platforms' ability to mediate their activity in the digital realm.

In short, while "unmediated religion" is impossible to achieve, churches may be cautious about whether, when, and how they allow outside technical forces to intervene.

This skepticism of platforms-as-middlemen could have some explanatory power here, but it clearly doesn't capture the whole picture, because each denomination had an instance where they clearly adopted platforms and another where they clearly rejected them. What can explain that?

---

background-color: gray

# on Jacques Ellul

???

To try to explain this, I want to turn to the writings of Jacques Ellul, a 20th century French academic.

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<a title="Jan van Boeckel, ReRun Productions, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jacques_Ellul_(cropped).jpg"><img height="450" alt="Jacques Ellul" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Jacques_Ellul_%28cropped%29.jpg/960px-Jacques_Ellul_%28cropped%29.jpg"></a>

<p style="font-size:10px"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jacques_Ellul_(cropped).jpg">French sociologist and technology critique Jacques Ellul in his house in Pessac, France</a> by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Janboek">Jan van Boeckel</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 4.0 International</a>.</p>

???

It is traditional in Ellul Studies to describe Ellul as both a sociologist and a theologian, but both of these terms require some caveats. First, while Ellul made social scientific observations, it's not clear that he was a sociologist in the sense that many people in this room are sociologists.

Second, while Ellul was indeed a theologian, the blurring of theological commitments and academic claims has frequently been a liability to Mormon Studies, and it is important for me to emphasize that I am interested in the analytical affordances of his writing and in divorcing those affordances to any theological normativity he may have assigned to them.

I also want to propose that at least some of this tension between Ellul's sociological work and theological commitments can be attenuated by understanding Ellul as an anarchist—and how his anarchism served as an influence on both of those other identities.

---

???

For example, in the implicitly anarchist book *The Dawn of Everything*, the anthropologist David Graeber and the archaeologist David Wengrow make recurring comparisons between what I will call the rigid and the malleable.

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# "The fact that our planet is, at the present time, almost entirely covered by states obviously makes it easy to write as if such an outcome was inevitable."

Graeber, D., & Wengrow, D. (2021). *The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity*. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

???

On the rigid side, you have both powerful political states and a deterministic view of human history; on the malleable side, you have consensus-oriented decision-making and an corresponding emphasis on human self-determination.

---

???

Ellul often teases out similar dichotomies in both his sociological and theological writing, and I want to make these concepts my framework for today.

Ellul uses a lot of different lingo to articulate these dichotomies, and time is short, so I'm going to try to stick to three:

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# image vs. word

# reality vs. truth

# technique vs. presence

???

On the rigid side, we have the fixed image, the self-evident reality, and the technical imperative of efficacy. On the malleable side, we have the ambiguous word, the negotiated truth, and the ever slippery presence of God.

---

<table>
	<tr>
		<td>
			<a title="Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_Lake_Temple,_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg"><img height = 400, alt="Salt Lake Temple" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Salt_Lake_Temple%2C_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg"></a>
		</td>
		
		<td>
			<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg#/media/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7e/IndependenceTemple.jpg/1280px-IndependenceTemple.jpg" height = 400 alt="File:IndependenceTemple.jpg"></a>
		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>image, reality, technique</td>
		<td>word, truth, presence</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>
			<p style = "font-size:10px"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_Lake_Temple,_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg">The Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Diliff">Diliff</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0</a></p>
		</td>
		<td>
			<p style = "font-size:10px"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg">The Community of Christ Independence Temple in Independence, Missouri</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jonathunder">Jonathunder</a> is licensed under the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html">GNU Free Documentation License</a></p>
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>

???

So, what I'm going to argue here is that we can understand Latter Day Saint adoptions and rejections of platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic as driven by a Utah aspiration for the real, technical image and a Missouri aspiration for the true and present word.

These denominations embraced digital platforms to the extent that those platforms were seen as supportive of these underlying values and rejected platforms when they were seen as incompatible with those values.

This is, of course, complicated by the fact that Ellul saw technical media, like platforms, as overwhelmingly associated with one side of this dichotomy, while I am suggesting that we can consider it in both contexts. I'm deliberately challenging his thinking here and opening up some future theoretical explanation.

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background-color: gray

# denominational conferences

???

Let's start this exploration by looking at the conference traditions in these two denominations and how they correspond to Ellulian thinking.

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## "We plan to conduct all five sessions of that conference at the Conference Center. General authorities, general officers and their spouses, musicians, choirs, technicians, and others will participate as assigned. But, proceedings of the conference will be distributed throughout the world via technology only. The public will not be admitted in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, or in stake centers or meetinghouses in areas where contagion is a concern."

[How COVID-19 Will Impact the April 2020 General Conference](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/april-2020-general-conference-format-change), *Newsroom*

???

On March 11, 2020, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that it would be holding its April 2020 General Conference in a different format than usual. Church members would not be invited to the Conference Center in Salt Lake City or even to their local meetinghouses to watch the conference; rather, they would now only be able to participate in the conference via broadcasts of the conference.

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# "Church leaders announced a significant change to the format of the April 2020 general conference."

[How COVID-19 Will Impact the April 2020 General Conference](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/april-2020-general-conference-format-change), *Newsroom*

???

However, although the news release described this as a "significant change" in format, it's not clear that the April 2020 General Conference was really all that different. Yes, the 21,000 or so seats in the Conference Center were empty, but 21,000 seats cannot fit even 1% of the members that the church claims in Utah, let alone the rest of the world.

For decades, the vast majority of Latter-day Saints have engaged with General Conference through media that is associated with the Ellulian image: the radio, the television, the internet, and even the written word. While this has increased the accessibility of these general conferences, it has also shaped the format and expectations of these conferences even for those who are able to attend in person.

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# "when the television set speaks, the word is no longer involved, since no dialogue is possible"

Ellul, J. (1985). *The humiliation of the word*. Wipf & Stock.

???

For example, Ellul highlights the way that television serves as a one-way medium. Dialogue is not possible, and so the word is not present, there is only the seemingly self-evident image that must be conformed to.

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# "For many it was the first and only time seeing their leaders in medium close-up. Viewers were even invited to raise their hand to sustain 'by common consent' the leaders of the church during each conference broadcast. This unifying action at a distance was powerful."

Allred, M. K. (2023). *Seeing things: Technologies of vision and the making of Mormonism*. The University of North Carolina Press.

???

Although he does not use Ellulian language, Allred invokes similar ideas in his book on visual media and Mormonism. That those watching General Conference via television from their homes are invited to participate in sustaining votes emphasizes how these votes serve as a "unifying action"—a display of conformity to the whole—rather than any dialectical back and forth between church membership and church leadership.

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## "In 1960, the RLDS Church debated and passed a resolution to rename their biannual 'General Conference' as the 'World Conference.' Almost immediately, church officials began to informally refer to their church as the World Church, a moniker that made it into conference speeches and official stationary. The term World Church aptly described church members’ aspirations rather than their contemporary realities."

Howlett, D. J. (2022). The RLDS church, global denominations, and globalization: Why the study of denominations still matters. *Journal of Mormon History*. *48*(3), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.5406/24736031.48.3.01

???

In contrast, let's take a look at David Howlett's observation about mid-twentieth century Community of Christ (or RLDS) history. He notes that in 1960, this church "debated and passed a resolution to rename" their General Conference as the church's "World Conference." Howlett is making another point, but even in passing, this description emphasizes how these denominational conferences differ from those held in Salt Lake. First, there is the debating and passing of resolutions: these conferences serve a parliamentary function.

Second, although this terminology is aspirational (as much in 2026 as in 1960), calling it the World Conference emphasizes a Community of Christ self-conception as not simply based in Missouri but existing throughout the world. Those who attend the World Conference are an audience for sermons and worship services but also delegates who represent local church jurisdictions in their voting.

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# "After careful consideration of global pandemic recovery trends and consultations with field leaders and health professionals, the Community of Christ First Presidency has decided to delay 2022 World Conference until 2023."

[Church Officials Postpone World Conference](https://web.archive.org/web/20210630195233/https://www.cofchrist.org/announcements), *Announcements*

???

In this context, it is unsurprising that in March 2021, leaders of Community of Christ announced that their World Conference originally scheduled for 2022 would be delayed to 2023 to allow for greater access to vaccination.

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## "Upholding our Enduring Principles in light of the collective information we have at this given time, it was wise to delay the next World Conference until delegates from around the world can safely travel, enter the USA, meet together, and return without contributing to community spread of COVID-19 or its emerging variants."

[World Conference Delayed](https://web.archive.org/web/20210630234956/https://www.cofchrist.org/Common/Cms/documents/World-Conference-Delayed.pdf), *Community of Christ International Headquarters*

???

Greater access to vaccination would be generally good for not spreading disease but would also make it easier for delegates to enter the United States and promote more representative attendance for discussing church legislation. In short, the functions of a World Conference cannot be transmitted via broadcast in the way that the functions of a General Conference can.

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## "Veazey welcomed the first delegates to participate in a legislative session via the Internet. Graceland University and the church in Honduras were represented. An extended effort was made before Conference to include the church in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the connection wasn’t feasible for technical reasons."

*Monday Bulletin*, 2023 World Conference, Community of Christ

???

Indeed, although the 2023 World Conference would experiment with representation from delegates connected via internet from locations other than Independence, there were clear limitations to doing so. (Anecdotally, similar efforts during the 2025 World Conference were also logistically difficult—even if the connection is good, it is just hard to file an amendment to legislation over Zoom.) It is not so much that Community of Christ distrusts digital platforms to mediate their denominational conferences, it is more that the digital infrastructure to preserve the Ellulian word in the way they wish to is not yet present.

---

<table>
	<tr>
		<td>
			<a title="Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_Lake_Temple,_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg"><img height = 400, alt="Salt Lake Temple" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Salt_Lake_Temple%2C_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg"></a>
		</td>
		
		<td>
			<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg#/media/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7e/IndependenceTemple.jpg/1280px-IndependenceTemple.jpg" height = 400 alt="File:IndependenceTemple.jpg"></a>
		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>image, reality, technique</td>
		<td>word, truth, presence</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>
			<p style = "font-size:10px"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_Lake_Temple,_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg">The Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Diliff">Diliff</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0</a></p>
		</td>
		<td>
			<p style = "font-size:10px"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg">The Community of Christ Independence Temple in Independence, Missouri</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jonathunder">Jonathunder</a> is licensed under the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html">GNU Free Documentation License</a></p>
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>

???

So, we can see here that the adoption or rejection of digital platforms in this context isn't a simple question of do we allow digital technologies to serve as intermediaries but rather a question of when that concession to platforms is perceived as aligning with underlying values, which correspond with an Ellulian framework.

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background-color: gray

# sacred rites

???

In fact, as I've already suggested, we can see this in the way that the positions of these two churches with respect for allowing for digital intermediaries is reversed in the context of sacraments or ordinances.

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# "Sacraments are special ministries given to the church to convey the grace of Jesus Christ to his followers and all those he yearns to touch with his compassion."

*Sharing in Community of Christ: Exploring identity, mission, message, and beliefs* (Fourth Edition), Herald Publishing House.

???

To understand Community of Christ's embrace of digital platforms as intermediaries for sacred rites, we need to understand that this denomination understands these rites in the context of the "presence" and "word" side of the Ellulian dichotomies. While there is clearly some systematization at play with any denomination's sacraments, Community of Christ understands rites as an attempt to momentarily recognize a divine grace that cannot be fully pinned down rather than an efficacious means for bringing about that grace.

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## "It is not the form of the sacrament that dispensese grace but it is the divine presence that gives life. Be respectful of tradition and sensitive to one another, but do not be unduly bound by interpretations and procedures that no longer fit the needs of a worldwide church."

[Community of Christ] Doctrine and Covenants 162:2d

???

Thus, as early as 2004, Grant McMurray, explicitly using the word "presence," called on that denomination to be open to evolution in the specific procedures associated with sacraments.

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## "More groups are offering opportunities for people to connect online to congregational and mission center activities. Can people participate online in the Lord’s Supper? How can that occur while maintaining the basic elements and symbols of the sacrament, and how does WCR 401 apply to these circumstances?"

Guidelines for Serving the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (Communion), *Community of Christ*

???

Fifteen years later, in September 2019, Community of Christ leaders responded to this invitation in a particular way. Recognizing that geographical distance between church members (exacerbated by the small size and demographic decline of the denomination) was leading to greater adoption of online meetings, they released guidelines for online participation in communion even before COVID-19 was a consideration. With the advent of the pandemic, they expanded this initial effort, releasing guidelines for online participation in most of the denomination's sacraments.

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# There is also the technique, of a more or less spiritual order... an expression of man's [*sic*] will to obtain certain results of a spiritual order. To attain them, man made use of an aggregate of rites, formulas, and procedures which, once established, do not vary.

Ellul, J. (1964). *The technological society*. Alfred A. Knopf.

???

In contrast, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints views its ordinances in technical terms. They are systematic procedures for obtaining particular results, a particular kind of technical thinking that Ellul acknowledges in his survey of the history of technique.

---

# "During this time, people changed many gospel teachings. Much of the knowledge about the true nature of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost was distorted or lost. People also changed priesthood ordinances, such as baptism."

*Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ* [Second edition].

???

Because the efficacy of these ordinances is tied to the procedures associated with them, it is natural that there would be conservative attitudes toward changing those procedures. Indeed, the first lesson in the missionary manual *Preach My Gospel* uses the purported changing of ordinances as evidence of a great "falling away." Implicit in this narrative is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is authoritative because it has the unchanged—or at least authorized—version of these ordinances.

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## "Herein lies the particular challenge to the LDS Church in the maintenance of both the authority and vitality of its ritualized canon. On the one hand, it must be accepted by the faithful as fixed: a timeless standard by which they order their lives. On the other hand it must shift to accommodate life as experienced by successive generations, if it is to have any relevancy and, hence, power to order their lives."

Flake, K. (1995). 'Not to be riten': The Mormon temple rite as oral canon. *Journal of Ritual Studies*, *9*(2), 1-21.

???

Of course, this denomination's ordinances have changed over time, and contemporary leaders have acknowledged as much. However, scholars of Mormonism—here, Kathleen Flake—have long observed this tension between the need to be timeless and the need to evolve.

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# "The platform has emerged as the endemic form of online enterprise, which is weird, because **another word for *platform* is *middleman***."

Doctorow, C. (2025). *Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.* New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

???

I don't think this is just a question of resistance to change, though, and this is where platform-oriented thinking becomes useful again. For LDS leaders, to allow someone to participate in the sacrament via Zoom allows that person to engage with the holy without stepping into a holy place or into the presence of someone who holds the holy priesthood. It allows Zoom to become a middleman in between the church and its members, and it disrupts the technical logics of that faith.

---

<table>
	<tr>
		<td>
			<a title="Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_Lake_Temple,_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg"><img height = 400, alt="Salt Lake Temple" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Salt_Lake_Temple%2C_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg"></a>
		</td>
		
		<td>
			<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg#/media/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7e/IndependenceTemple.jpg/1280px-IndependenceTemple.jpg" height = 400 alt="File:IndependenceTemple.jpg"></a>
		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>image, reality, technique</td>
		<td>word, truth, presence</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>
			<p style = "font-size:10px"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_Lake_Temple,_Utah_-_Sept_2004.jpg">The Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Diliff">Diliff</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0</a></p>
		</td>
		<td>
			<p style = "font-size:10px"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndependenceTemple.jpg">The Community of Christ Independence Temple in Independence, Missouri</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jonathunder">Jonathunder</a> is licensed under the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html">GNU Free Documentation License</a></p>
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>

???

Once again, the adoption or rejection of digital platforms is not a simple acceptance or rejection of intermediaries as intermediaries but rather an outgrowth of these denominations' preferences within my Ellulian framework.

---

background-color: gray

# conclusion and future directions

???

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background-color: #272822

<h1 style="color:white">Thank you! Looking forward to questions.</h1>
<h1 style="color:white; text-align:center">Jacques Ellul, Platforms, and Latter Day Saint Technical Responses to COVID-19</h1>
<h3 style="color:white">Spencer P. Greenhalgh, PhD<br>     School of Information Science, University of Kentucky
<br>     
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<a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work">spencergreenhalgh.com/work</a>
<br>     
<svg width = 25 style="fill: rgb(249, 38, 114)"  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M48 64C21.5 64 0 85.5 0 112c0 15.1 7.1 29.3 19.2 38.4L236.8 313.6c11.4 8.5 27 8.5 38.4 0L492.8 150.4c12.1-9.1 19.2-23.3 19.2-38.4c0-26.5-21.5-48-48-48H48zM0 176V384c0 35.3 28.7 64 64 64H448c35.3 0 64-28.7 64-64V176L294.4 339.2c-22.8 17.1-54 17.1-76.8 0L0 176z"/></svg> 
<a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="mailto:spencer.greenhalgh@uky.edu">spencer.greenhalgh@uky.edu</a>
</h3>

<p style="color:white"> slides: <a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work/_mssa_2026_ellul.html">https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work/_mssa_2026_ellul.html</a></p>

---
class: center, middle

# "I'm well aware of what you say, and still I stick with my misleading simplification."

Ellul, J. (1985). *The humiliation of the word*. Wipf & Stock.

---

## "Now, we should be clear here: social theory always, necessarily, involves a bit of simplification. [...] Social theory is largely a game of make-believe in which we pretend, just for the sake of argument, that there's just one thing going on: essentially, we reduce everything to a cartoon so as to be able to detect patterns that would otherwise be invisible."

Graeber, D., & Wengrow, D. (2021). *The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity*. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.