On a certain street in a certain (imaginary) town there are two houses that lie directly across from each other.  Within each house lives a different LDS family, although as it happens the local ward boundaries travel down the middle of the street in front of them, thus these two families happen to belong to separate wards despite their close proximity.

The woman living on the north side of the road serves as Sunday School teacher, and feels spiritually fulfilled as she has meaningful gospel interaction with her students week after week.  She has a good relationship with her home and visiting teachers, who were very supportive when her husband was injured last year, bringing food and helping with yard work as needed.  She has been happy to participate in ward endeavors spearheaded by the bishopric and RS president to make sure all ward members have basic needs and are cared for.  Going to church each week is a joyous and fulfilling experience, enhanced by the positive attitude and actions of those around her.

The woman living on the south side of the road has never seen her home teachers in two years, even when she was sick and tried to arrange a blessing.  Her visiting teachers did visit once, but spent the visit encouraging her to join in their multi-level marketing company.   (After she refused, they haven’t returned…)

She’s held a primary calling for the last two years and hates it, but hasn’t been released because—in the helpful words of the bishopric—‘that’s where women should be’.  True, she doesn’t particularly miss going to Relief Society, after she found out the Relief Society president had spread a rumor about her and her husband's sex life to half the ward since they only have one kid.  She would like to go to Sunday School every once in a while, though, although her husband said the teacher spent last week campaigning for the local Republican congressman and making racist comments about illegal immigrants, so she didn't miss much.

Her current struggles involve her teenage son who wants to stay home on Sundays because the other Young Men bully and tease him, while the YM president doesn’t seem to notice or care.  And every once in a while, she’ll get a call from one of her neighbors wondering, somewhat desperately, if anyone knows where her husband is.  (As it happens, he’s having an affair with the primary president).

Obviously, there is only one correct conclusion to draw from these two disparate experiences:  the Church must be ‘true’ on one side of the road, but not the other.

Well, okay, that’s not really defensible from a logical perspective…but how else should we interpret these two stories where one woman in one ward can have a vastly different experience with the members around her than a woman in another ward?

Many members struggle with the varying amounts of un-Christ-like behavior they witness from people around them who should ‘know better’.  Virtually all members, no matter their location, will have to come to terms sooner or later with imperfections within the members of their own religious community.

Many of those struggling members share they experience a 'crisis of faith' when faced with such circumstances (here’s one such recent thread).  They *know*, fundamentally, they can’t expect perfection from church members, including leaders—that’s even LESS defensible a proposition—but there’s still the feeling that, “If this Church were REALLY the Lord’s true Church, the members should be more righteous then they are.  Sure, there will always be some wickedness…but certainly not THIS much!”

The problem is: this isn’t any more defensible at its core than the expectation of perfection is.  How righteous is “more” righteous, exactly?   How do you define ‘acceptable’ amounts of imperfection versus ‘unacceptable’ amounts?

The above theory implies that IF the Lord has a ‘true’ church (however we define that term) and even though He has given mankind free agency to choose good or evil, there’s still some minimum level of righteousness that His true church should always achieve from ward to ward…and the lack of it in one or more wards is, in fact, direct evidence against the Church having true authority and a divine foundation, as it claims.

If we were to assume this ‘minimum level of righteous’ exists for the Lord’s “true” church, how would this standard be enforced, exactly?  Do Church members have less free agency than non-members in some way--where the Holy Spirit physically prevents Church members from committing certain sins beyond a certain level?  If we acknowledge that, say, a priesthood holding male is capable of murdering his wife—as in one famous case in Utah a few years back—then that pretty much removes the bar for what the Lord ‘allows’ Church members to do and what He doesn’t, doesn’t it?

In the end, asking the question, “If this is the Lord’s Church, shouldn’t there be more righteousness among its members?” is essentially the same as those that ask, “If God exists, shouldn’t there be less suffering in the world?”  It is a fair question, after all, but if you acknowledge that *some* level of unrighteousness and suffering WILL exist as part of the master plan, then beyond that you’re just talking about degrees.  How DO you draw that arbitrary line between ‘okay’ and ‘too much’?

If the woman on the south side crossed the street (or moved across town), and had a completely different experience with her new member associates, does that really imply anything at all about the divine nature of the Church and the restored Gospel?  Is the Church really ‘true’ on one side of the street and not the other?

The fact of the matter is: unrighteous behavior among Church members is a reflection of…those individual members.  Period.

This does not minimize the problems that wickedness and unrighteous dominion can create, especially among fellow members.  But in the end, any Church member suffering a ‘crisis of faith’ due to the people around them will have to realize eventually that unrighteous members in the South ward allows you to draw absolutely no conclusion about the Church as a whole—no more than the existence of 'good' members in the North ward does.   Is one side more (or less) representative of the whole than the other?  Does the spiritual power and truthfulness of religion stop short right in the middle of the street?  I don't think so...