A recent "Single Mormon Twenty Something" column by McKay Coppins looked at a controversial talk given in 1967. Mormon Times staff writer Michael De Groote adds an opinion about the characterizations in that column.

I first read Richard D. Poll's talk "What the Church Means to People Like Me" while I was investigating the LDS Church in 1981. He divided the church membership in two: those who are "Iron Rod" Mormons and those who are "Liahona" Mormons.

It seemed wrong to me. Although some may have felt comforted that there was a place for them in the church as "Liahonas," I couldn't imagine anybody who wanted to fall under his definition of "Iron Rod." It was a decidedly one-sided justification that, instead of healing, had a hint of arguing for the superiority of "people like me."

It also changed the meanings of "Iron Rod" and "Liahona" in a dangerous way. Why dangerous? Because if Poll's usage of these words caught on it would distort and taint these sacred things with something divisive. It is too easy to mix the metaphors and think Poll was saying there were members who rely and believe in the scriptures and there were those members who are not held back by such restrictions and were free to go thither and yon following their own intellectual Liahona.

President Harold B. Lee, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, also rejected this unnatural appropriation. He criticized Poll's talk mainly by using the original sense of iron rod as meaning the word of God.

What is even worse is that it created an anti-gospel division within the body of Christ. It created an "us" versus "them" way of looking at things. One of our Mormon Times reporters recently heard this attitude illustrated at a conference where a presenter complained that he "didn't fit in" at his ward because he was the only one who was educated with a PhD. Can anybody imagine Elder Neal A. Maxwell or Truman Madsen saying this?

The biggest danger with Poll's labeling isn't with the Iron Rods -- they don't really exist anyway. The biggest danger is to the self-identified Liahonas. The only way they could possibly look at Iron Rods is as something lower on Fowler's Stages Of Faith continuum. By becoming something different than their brothers and sisters they not only create a caricature of the Iron Rod they create a caricature of themselves. They risk the danger of trying to live a special Oscar Wildian existence apart from those who don't share their independent vision or who don't struggle with their deep intellectual angst.

When I worked at Deseret Book in Mesa, Ariz. in 1988, I made a point of ordering Dialogue and Sunstone magazines. I mentioned this once to a customer. Her face lit up in rhapsody as she said to me "It is so good to find another member of the church who isn't a sheep!"  Ugh.

Another problem with labeling is that it is aspirational by nature. McKay Coppins's recent column had him wondering whether he was an Iron Rod or a Liahona. When confronted with labels he tried them on and began to apply them to situations and people. But just because we can invent a way of classification doesn't mean we should accept that classification. It isn't a matter of rejecting extremes on Poll's scale, the scale itself should be jettisoned.

This isn't to say that people do not have differences and that the variations Poll and Coppins describe do not exist. They do. But the reason so much controversy surrounds Poll's labeling game is that the labels only work for one side -- and the reason they work for that one side is bad in itself.

The terms Liahona and Iron Rod would be better left to the meanings assigned by God, rather than those assigned by Poll.

In the question of Liahona and Iron Rod we are not the objects. Instead, it is better to think of ourselves as Lehi. The Liahona and Iron Rod are approaches. They are means to come to God. These approaches need to both strive within us. Using these labels for people must be rejected entirely. Instead, let us use labels that will break down those barriers between us.

Fortunately we do not have to look any further than our weekly sacrament meeting to find the label that will help us. The label we need to adopt, or in other words, the name we need to take upon ourselves is Christ. When we see ourselves with that label and when we place that label upon others we will have one hand holding the iron rod and one hand holding the Liahona and both will lead us to eternal life.

E-mail: mdegroote@desnews.com