I once had the neighbor from hell. I use the expression with theological intent.

Smart and relentlessly treacherous, he was somewhere on the spectrum from malignant narcissist to full-fledged sociopath, and I had no desire to observe closely enough to find out where. I do not know what horror had befallen him — if anything more significant than a stray cosmic ray hitting the genome at the wrong time — but he seemed to be without sincere empathy toward anyone. Worse, he seemed to have grown to love cruelty as the only thing giving meaning to his life. He was Jack Nicholson as the Joker: “So many people to hurt, so little time!” If he was not planning or executing some plot against one person, it was because he was busy with a more hated target.

Our family’s first hostile contact with this guy arose innocently enough. His daughter had a cat. When his daughter was living with her mother — he was, of course, in the middle of a messy divorce — he left it outside in the cold and wet and the hot and dry. My wife, not wanting the cat to suffer, began putting out a bowl of water on our porch in the heat, and a little food and a towel for the cat to shelter under in the cold. Polite suggestions to him that leaving the cat outside wasn’t a good idea led to several conflicted stories about why it was all right, but a clear acknowledgement that the cat was, indeed, his responsibility.

And then, after this had gone on for several months, a middle-aged oriental woman, not speaking English very well, appeared at our door one evening. She asked us if the cat then lurking behind our front bushes belonged to our neighbor, and my wife innocently and honestly answered yes.

And with that simple act, we moved unexpectedly from peace to a full-scale personal war in which our spiritual and emotional health and livelihood was directly threatened.

The woman had purchased the property from a military doctor and his wife when they transferred out of state to a new assignment. She had invested  her savings to make the buy, and then rented the property to our neighbor through an agency. Home prices in our county had been exploding, and she hoped to make a good profit from her investment. Instead, she found a nightmare.

In the year he’d been there, he’d managed to find some loophole each month to avoid paying a cent of rent. County codes here are built more to protect immigrant tenants from slumlords; they really were not designed with what an immoral tenant could do to an immigrant landlord in mind. Heating and cooling systems or plumbing would continually “break” — there were sometimes different heating companies called to the home for repairs on the same day, especially when the first arrivals found the systems to be working properly. He would call for repairs to be made, then deny access to the repairmen. On one occasion, I saw him demand reseeding of grass in his front yard for drainage, and then slip out to the yard that weekend and destroy the new turf.  On another, I saw him inspect a damaged fence, and then, rather than report it, hide the fact from the landlady until another month’s rent was due.

Now, burning through her savings for mortgage payments and repairs  with no end in sight, being harassed by the man by telephone and intimidated by him to the point she was afraid to come to the home without an escort, she saw a possible way to break the lease: it had a no-pet provision. And so she asked about the cat. We answered honestly — and then the neighbor came after us.

My wife had been supporting us by teaching individual piano students from our home for years, and had been the primary breadwinner since my heart attack. He filed complaints that what we were doing instead was a group studio in violation of zoning, and demanded we be shut down. He stole trash during the night and attempted to frame me for illegal dumping of medical waste. He attempted to intimidate parents from bringing children for lessons by rushing to the edge of our property and, without any explanation, taking pictures of the children, and then the license plates of their cars like they were drug dealers. Every night there was drilling into the walls between our homes  or hammering on them, and we never knew if or how he was trying to sabotage our systems. We spent thousands in legal fees just to protect ourselves.

As I began to ask myself who was this guy, and why was he doing this, I found in public legal records that he had a long record of defiance to authority, with a couple of dozen violations, including jail time, for various disputes with neighbors seemingly everywhere he’d lived since adulthood. Simultaneously with his dispute with us and the landlady, he was on trial for phone harassment of his wife, and in a domestic violence dispute with a girlfriend he’d been with less than a month. He sought out potential violations by other witnesses in the neighborhood (such as expired license plates), and threatened to expose them if they testified. He went after the Home Owners Association President, an African-American, by making racial slurs in the presence of her daughter. He went after the county enforcement officials and tried to get their bosses to fire them; he went after the lawyers for conflicts of interest; he tried to get judges removed from his trials. You get the point.

The pressure on us grew more dispiriting, or perhaps I should say dark-spiriting, as months went by with no resolution. And we found ourselves increasingly turning to prayer for deliverance, as we felt imprisoned in our own home, never knowing what we would have to defend against tomorrow. And, as necessary, we were indeed delivered. In a couple of cases, traps laid for us were thwarted by unlikely coincidences. But the darkness, though warded off, was always present.

And then, in one of those deep prayer experiences, I heard in my mind my enemy’s soul cry out in an agony to God to be delivered from the darkness that enveloped him. I do not believe his physical form recognized what his own spirit was doing; he seemed to love the darkness and would cling to his cellphone (from which he harassed victims) like it was a totem of power he could not be without for even a moment. But I heard the Holy Spirit answer: “He is forbidden to remain as he is.” And the word “forbidden” carried all of the undeniable weight of a requirement to choose salvation or doom.

A few days later, entirely unbidden, while I was still trying to understand in my own mind the previous experience,  I heard his soul cry out again that he would be lost. And equally unbidden, my own prayers suddenly changed.

Instead of praying that God would get this guy off my family’s back, I found myself praying that God would get that darkness off this guy’s back. Because I saw that there was truly a predator, and my neighbor was the unsuspecting prey. And I was weeping for him, and praying as hard and as intensely as I have ever prayed for anything in my life.

It was the first time in my life that I truly loved my enemy.  Not decided that someone wasn’t really my enemy (six months after he finally left the neighborhood, he came back to see if sabotage he’d previously prepared for the air conditioning unit had, in fact,  caused the system to fail, leaving new renters he’d never even met sweltering in a summer heat wave for two days). Not just trying to treat my enemy with justice. Not simply restraining my self-defense. For once, I knew what it meant to love an enemy, even knowing he would remain my enemy, and that the existing situation was forbidden to continue.

But why was it only “for once”? What makes it so hard for me — for us — to stay in the loving attitude that the fate of the soul of my enemy (let alone the soul of a stranger or a friend) is of eternal significance even if I must oppose that enemy with all my might?

That seems to be something to spend some time contemplating as we remember this weekend a day of great violence.

I think so many people want a clear “black and white” answer on many issues. Instead our leaders and the Lord give us great freedom (leeway so to speak) to live our religion.
A lot of people seem to be on a quest to “decide” what our Heavenly Father must feel and what His stance must be on certain things like oral sex, plastic surgery, and even consuming caffeine, for example….
So many people are adamant that they KNOW what’s right and what’s wrong, and that all other opinions are false.
Someone may assume, for instance, that because I am not speaking out against these things that therefore, I must do them myself. What’s important to me is that I don’t join the ranks of people assuming that my answer is the right answer – and then move towards casting judgments.
Agency can be such a tricky thing, can’t it?

Well I couldn’t agree with you more. There are so many reasons I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. Three of its main principles that resonate with me are 1. the gift and importance of free agency, 2. knowing we have the possibility to receive personal revelation applicable to our unique situation, and 3. the guidance to be non-judgmental and merciful when dealing with ourselves and others.

• It is through our free agency that we learn EVERYTHING. If we choose to follow the gospel, then we choose. If we don’t, we still choose. Either way the consequences (whether positive or negative) have to do with learning and progression. It is based on the principle of opposition. For every good there is bad. For every painful experience there is the possibility for joy. If we can truly accept this principle, it is easier to have perspective when we fall, or what can seem sometimes worse, when our loved ones fall.
• It is through personal revelation that one of our prophets, Nephi, came to know he had to kill in order to recover the history of his people. This went against the most basic of commandments.  I am in no way inferring that we should feel justified in murder through the guise of personal revelation, and yet there is a lesson to be learned. Sometimes, for the sake of something better and bigger and through personal revelation, we leave the “rule” behind (i.e. we stay in a struggling marriage for the sake of an eternal family, we divorce our spouse because of personal safety, we embrace the member we know has recently been excommunicated, we love and support our gay son who has left the church, we think before speaking in church and take into account different situations, we cease to judge others whom we know little about, we decide that engaging in oral sex is OK, we decide engaging in oral sex is not OK, etc.). It is of utmost importance for all of us to be continually building on this heavenly means of communication with our Father for it has no limit.
• Once we understand that all of us are on different progression paths, we can better accept the concepts of mercy and forgiveness which lead to the possibility of being less judgmental. The “I can’t believe he did that!” “Did you hear what she just said?” “I could never do something like that!” comments go by the wayside to make way for a more productive process of communication that embodies the true love of Christ: charity. And charity never faileth. It never fails us and it never fails others. Christ Himself loved, served, and healed the most vile of sinners of His time. Is this not the utmost of metaphors for us all? We all sin. It is impossible in this life not to. If we did not sin, what would be the point of even being here?

In my dealings with many members of the church and in looking at my own life experiences, I have come to the conclusion that very little of what we are faced with falls into the “Black or White” category. From the very beginning we know that Eve and Adam face a contradiction: two opposing commandments. We can ask what kind of God would put us in this predicament? I counter with this answer: A God who wanted us to learn mercy. A God who needs us to understand compassion. A God who wants us to think for ourselves, use our resources, and stretch our boundaries or comfort zones. In fact many of our beloved scriptural stories are in some way or another about people who had to find an exception to the rule – a different way than what their cultural or religious traditions proscribed. Jesus Christ Himself was the epitome of breaking the Mosaic and Judaic rules in order to achieve cadence to a higher law – a higher purpose. I am in no way encouraging everyone to go break rules for the heck of it. Commandments and guidance are in place to help us achieve happiness and attain blessings. I just hope that through this gospel principle of looking at the “gray” which surrounds us, we can look at situations on an individual basis (not everything or everyone fits into the same mold) and on a merciful basis (no matter what anyone is doing or not doing, they deserve our love and respect as fellow children of God – including ourselves).

MM readers- How do you see the world?  Black and White?  Or with varying degrees of gray?

“For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” (2 Nephi 25:23)

The key to this scripture verse are in two distinct phrases:

“for we know that it is by grace that we are saved” and,

“after all we can do.”

“By grace we are saved” – We are saved from eternal death, brought about by the fall of Adam because of the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. We receive this gift without condition, we cannot earn it and it is given to every person who ever existed or will exist on this earth.

However, then comes a tricky phrase:

“after all we can do.” – This would seem to indicate that the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ comes after the “do.” The footnote in the LDS Bible for “do” sends us to the Topical Guide section “Good Works.” This might lead one to the conclusion while reading this scripture literally, that you “work your way to heaven.”  That grace is earned after good works. This is a common charge by those critical of the doctrines of the LDS Church.

So just what does “all we can do” mean?

Here is my take on it.

I do not believe that good works can fully justify us. That is, unless we bring to the Lord what He asked for, the sacrifice of a “broken heart and a contrite spirit.”

“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” (Psalms 34:18)

“And behold, I have given you the law and the commandments of my Father, that ye shall believe in me, and that ye shall repent of your sins, and come unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit.  …” (3 Nephi 12:19)

“Thou shalt offer a sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in righteousness, even that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.” (Doctrine and Covenants 59:8)

Someone who truly repented of his/her sins and tries to live the example of the Savior will be motivated to do good works as the Savior did. In doing good works will be a desire to more fully emulate the Savior, but not as a proof point about how well the person performs all the works of the gospel. In the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18), the Pharisee thought himself very justified and worthy before the Lord because of all the things of the law that he performed, while the Lord justified the Publican because of his humility.

It speaks to the idea that works:

1. be motivated for the right reasons
2. be inspired by our desire to serve the Lord
3. not be done to seek the praise of others
4. does not replace the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
5. be combined with a true “broken heart and contrite spirit.”

So, I am saying that, “all we can do” is offer “the sacrifice of a broken heart and contrite spirit” and the Lord provides the rest.

Though it’s only an “additional teaching idea” in Lesson 12, Jacob’s ladder has captured my imagination due to some conversations I’ve recently had with Christian evangelicals.

The theme of the ladder to heaven is often used by the Early Church Fathers. Their interpretations of Jacob’s symbolic dream in Genesis 28 are similar to those made by Mormon General Authorities. In the 2nd century, Saint Irenaeus described the Christian Church as the ladder of ascent to God. In the 3rd century Origen explained that there are two ladders in the Christian life; one of which is the ladder that the soul climbs on the earth increasing the virtues. In the 4th century Saint Gregory of Nazianzus spoke of ascending Jacob’s Ladder by successive steps towards excellence, interpreting thus the ladder as an ascetic path, while Saint Gregory of Nyssa wrote that Moses climbed on Jacob’s Ladder to reach the heavens where he entered the tabernacle not made with hands, thus giving to the Ladder a clear mystical meaning. The ascetic interpretation is found also in Saint John Chrysostom who wrote:

“And so mounting as it were by steps, let us get to heaven by a Jacob’s ladder. For the ladder seems to me to signify in a riddle by that vision the gradual ascent by means of virtue, by which it is possible for us to ascend from earth to heaven, not using material steps, but improvement and correction of manners.”

The account of Jacob’s Ladder as an analogy for the spiritual ascetic of life is again found in the classical work Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus. The ladder in Jacob’s dream represented a symbolic journey where each of the rungs suggest the steps needed to move upward. Man must climb up one level at a time as he participates in the saving principles and ordinances of the gospel offered by the Lord, who stands at the top. Notice how similar this description is to the quote by Marion G. Romney found in our lesson:

“Jacob realized that the covenants he made with the Lord … were the rungs on the ladder that he himself would have to climb in order to obtain the promised blessings—blessings that would entitle him to enter heaven and associate with the Lord” (“Temples—The Gates to Heaven,” Ensign, Mar. 1971, 16).

***
Later Christian interpretation of Jacob’s ladder is quite different than the early Church fathers, and demonstrates the dichotomy of thought between evangelicals and Mormons on the faith and works issue. In this exegesis, Jesus is seen as being the reality to which the ladder points in that he bridges the gap between heaven and earth. According to Martin Luther, Jacob’s vision of the ladder represented the incarnation of Christ. In the Gospel of John 1:51 there is a clear reference to Jacob’s dream pointing towards Jesus Christ, referred to by his title of the Son of Man:

And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

Adam Clarke, an early 19th century Methodist theologian and Bible scholar, elaborated upon this verse:

“That by the angels of God ascending and descending, is to be understood, that a perpetual intercourse should now be opened between heaven and earth, through the medium of Christ, who was God manifested in the flesh. Our blessed Lord is represented in his mediatorial capacity as the ambassador of God to men; and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man, is a metaphor taken from the custom of dispatching couriers or messengers from the prince to his ambassador in a foreign court, and from the ambassador back to the prince.”

In this one Biblical symbol we find differing schools of thought over the issue of salvation: One group views the ladder as a way to reach heaven based on their own actions of improvement and obedience to covenants and ordinances. The other group has access to heaven based on the provisions of God through the Mediator, Jesus Christ, who came to earth and became that ladder or stairway for the sinner to reconnect the relationship with God.

In pondering this issue in the past, I have lamented that such a rift exists between our two faith traditions. It often seems to me that we are closer than we think, and that grace and works are both important. Mormons, I explain, emphasize works so much because we fear that if we don’t, the sinner might lapse into laziness or indifference. Christians emphasize the grace aspect of the equation so that no one will mistakenly trust in legalism rather than the Savior for their salvation. Isn’t the truth a balance between Paul and James? However, the evangelicals have labored hard to convince me that salvation must be accepted upon grace alone. Lately I’ve been pondering why I am reluctant to join them in their assurance. I’ve accepted Christ as my Savior, and it certainly would be a lot easier not to worry so much about whether I was paying my tithing, going to the temple regularly, or doing my visiting teaching. But here’s what holds me back: if Jesus offers me the grace they describe, then I’ll be OK whether I’m doing my works or not. But if the Mormon view turns out to be the more accurate description of the will of God for us, I need to be trying my hardest to do all of those works which are in my power.

Am I living my life based on fear rather than faith? Maybe. Will it count against me in the end?  I don’t see how it could.

What’s your take on Jacob’s ladder? Do we walk up, or does God descend to meet us where we are? Can this scriptural metaphor be of any help to us in our faith journey?

Bercot was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness but left over differences about Biblical interpretation, and subsequently became an Evangelical Christian. However, he had doubts about some Evangelical doctrines as well, such as the idea of eternal security (once saved, always saved), and remained convinced the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ belief in pacifism was correct.

Based on the fact that the pre-Nicene Church Fathers were the closest in time and place to the Apostles, Bercot reasoned that present-day disputes over scriptural interpretation could similarly be resolved by examining the writings of the pre-Nicene Church Fathers to determine how they interpreted and applied scripture. (These pre-Nicene Church fathers lived anywhere between 50 and 325 A.D.) Bercot’s legal training taught him to seek out the primary sources containing the writings of the pre-Nicene Church Fathers, rather than relying on modern treatises that often present sixth or seventh-hand accounts of what the Early Christians supposedly believed and practiced.

At the conclusion of his research, Bercot published a ten-volume collection of the Ante-Nicene Fathers‘ writings, the most comprehensive collection of primary sources available in English. Bercot then compared what he learned about pre-Nicene Christianity to mainstream Evangelical Christianity, formed his own publishing company, and published his summarized findings and analysis in Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up.

Mormons might be interested to know that Bercot’s research into the Early Christian Church demonstrates that the LDS Church today shares many of the doctrines of the Early Church, including:

• A concept of salvation that stresses the importance of both faith and obedience. As Bercot puts it: “The early Christians believed that salvation is a gift from God but that God gives His gift to whomever he chooses. And He chooses to give it to those who love and obey him.” (Emphasis in original.) According to Bercot, the mainstream Evangelical interpretation of “saved by grace” actually originated with St. Augustine after the Nicene Creed.
• That a person, once saved, could fall from grace and lose his salvation through disobedience.
• That salvation depends on a person’s correct exercise of his free will, rather than being predestined arbitrarily and irrevocably by God.
• That baptism actually effectuates a remission of sins, rather than simply being a sign of outward commitment.
• That unbaptized infants who died before baptism could still be saved, as well as other good and noble people who died without baptism.
• That Christians should observe the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper weekly.

However, Mormons might also be interested to know that, according to Bercot, the Early Christians held additional beliefs and practices that may be waning or absent from Mormonism:

• Early Christians had no belief resembling the modern “health and wealth” gospel that physical health and safety, or material prosperity, are blessings for righteous living. Rather, the Early Christians lived in material simplicity, striving to have all things in common and giving to the poor to the point of joining others in their poverty.
• Early Christians believed in separating themselves from the world as much as possible, going so far as to abstain from politics and the legal system, refusing to take oaths, and abstaining from the popular amusements of the day.
• Early Christians rejected capital punishment and even refused to assist in prosecuting someone for a capital offense. Similarly, Early Christians rejected war and refused to serve in the military. According to Bercot, the concept of the “just war” did not exist amongst Christians until St. Augustine.
• Many Early Church Fathers taught there was no special doctrinal revelation after the apostles and that everything we need to know about God had been revealed to the apostles by Jesus.

As Real Heretics crept into Christian bookstores, Bercot was surprised to learn that the book was making a huge splash in Anabaptist (Amish/Mennonite) circles. Bercot’s historical validation of several Anabaptist doctrines like pacifism, baptismal regeneration, separation from the world, and a rejection of the Reformation doctrines of sola fide (faith only) and predestination backed up several of their most cherished views. While Bercot was intrigued to learn that his findings greatly overlapped with Anabaptist beliefs, he found no legitimate basis for some Anabaptist beliefs, such as their lack of evangelism and avoidance of modern technology.

Over the next several years, Bercot struggled to find a religious community that embraced all Early Christian beliefs and practices as he understood them. He formed his own short-lived Early Christian Fellowship, but later affiliated with the Anglican Church because it allowed him freedom to form his own society to promote Early Christian beliefs, and because it is one of the older Christian churches that avoids the veneration of icons. However, Bercot eventually left the Anglicans due to their Catholic practice of venerating the Virgin Mary and espousing the “Just War” theory.

Bercot ultimately relocated to Pennsylvania, where he currently resides, and now affiliates with the Mennonites, who have many, but not all, of the Early Christian beliefs and practices that his research discovered.

The Campbellite-Mormon Connection

As I read Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, I was intrigued to find a non-LDS scholar giving historical support for so many LDS doctrines. Page after page, I kept wondering to myself: When Joseph Smith set out to restore the Early Christian Church, how did this largely uneducated 25-year old get so many things right? As far as I know, Joseph was ignorant of the writings of the Early Church Fathers. I couldn’t see how Joseph could have had the time or means to pour over old texts written by Polycarp, Ignatius, Origen, Ireneus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, or any of the other Early Church Fathers. Nor am I aware of Joseph ever having quoted the Early Church Fathers in his sermons or writings.

Moreover, I was struck by the fact that some of the Early Christian beliefs and practices that seem to be waning or absent in Mormonism today, such as the strong emphasis on creating a separate society and having all things in common, were found in Mormonism as originally established by Joseph Smith. The differences between Mormons today and the Early Christians (e.g., Mormons’ abandonment of communal living, strong involvement in political and legal affairs, common approval of capital punishment, military service, and strong allegiance to country) all seem to have resulted from Mormon “mainstreaming” over the past century .

In response to the question of how Joseph Smith got so many things right when he undertook to restore the Early Church, faithful Mormons will likely respond that Smith’s success owes to the fact that he was a true prophet of God who was called to restore the true Church of Jesus Christ. However, Real Heretics presents information that many others have cited to provide another possible explanation. After discussing the Early Church, Bercot discusses the eventual corruption and apostasy of the Church, and the valiant efforts of the Reformers to root out that corruption. Bercot then traces the development of several Restorationist branches of Christianity using language that will ring familiar to Mormons:

Whereas Luther had sought to reform the existing church-state establishment, others concluded that such an establishment was beyond reforming. So they worked to restore primitive Christianity apart from the church-state institution. Since the days of Luther, there have been numerous such movements to restore early Christianity. Real Heretics, p. 149.

Although Bercot does not identify Mormonism as one of those Restorationist movements, he does identify one of Mormonism’s cousins, the Stone-Campbellite Movement, as being one of the more successful Restoration movements:

Another movement to restore primitive Christianity sprung up in America in the early 1800s out of the Presbyterian church. . . . Barton W. Stone, a Presbyterian minister, began a movement in Kentucky to restore apostolic Christianity. Stone’s chief objective was to restore the holy living and separation from the world that had marked early Christianity.

In the 1820s, Stone’s movement merged with a separate movement begun by Thomas and Alexander Campbell, who were also seeking to restore primitive Christianity. One of Alexander Campbell’s primary objectives was to achieve unity among all Christians, forsaking all man-made creeds and traditions and returning to the forms, structures, and doctrines of the apostolic church. Real Heretics, p. 151.

Both Stone and the Campbells published journals urging a Restoration of the Early Church in the early 1800’s (The Christian Baptist, Millennial Harbinger, and The Christian Messenger).

Those familiar with Mormon history will recognize the names of Thomas and Alexander Campbell as the founders of the “Campbellite” Restoration movement that Sidney Rigdon, Parley Pratt, Edward Partridge, Isaac Morley, and at one point a majority of all Mormons belonged to before converting to Mormonism. When Sidney Ridgon read the Book of Mormon in 1830 while he was a Campbellite preacher, he converted to Mormonism as did many other Campbellites.  This enormous influx of former Campbellites into Mormonism doubled the Church’s membership in three weeks and resulted in Joseph Smith relocating the Saints’ gathering place by joining the former Campbellite converts in Kirtland, Ohio.

Why was Mormonism so appealing to Campbellites?  Starting in 1823, Campbell’s publication The Christian Baptist advocated an abandonment of all creeds and sects that divided Christendom and a restoration of a unified Church in which the “original gospel and order of things” are present.  (Source.) Alexander Campbell explained the Campbellites’ “distinguishing views and practices” as follows:

They regard all the sects and parties of the Christian world as having, in greater or less degrees, departed from the simplicity of faith and manners of the first Christians, and as forming what the apostle Paul calls “the apostasy.” . .  .

They look for unity of spirit and the bonds of peace in the practical acknowledgment of one faith, one Lord, one immersion, one hope, one body, one Spirit, one God and Father of all; not in unity of opinions, nor in unity of forms, ceremonies, or modes of worship. . . .  

Thus while they proclaim faith and repentance, or faith and a change of heart, as preparatory to immersion, remission, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, they say to all penitents, or all those who believe and repent of their sins, as Peter said to the first audience addressed after the Holy Spirit was bestowed after the glorification of Jesus, “Be immersed every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

The immersed believers are congregated into societies according to their propinquity to each other, and taught to meet the first day of every week in honor and commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus, and to break the loaf which commemorates the death of the Son of God, to read and hear the living oracles, to teach and admonish one another, to unite in all prayer and praise, to contribute to the necessities of saints, and to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord.

Every congregation chooses its own overseers and deacons, who preside over and administer the affairs of the congregations; and every church, either from itself or in co-operation with others, sends out, as opportunity offers, one or more evangelists, or proclaimers of the word, to preach the word and to immerse those who believe, to gather congregations, and to extend the knowledge of salvation where it is necessary, as far as their means extend.  (Source.)

Although the Campbellites and Mormons held many other beliefs in common, the above provides a sampling of the types of similarities that have presented religion historians with a fascinating chicken-or-the-egg question:  did Joseph Smith’s teachings resemble the Early Church’s “original gospel and order of things” because Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God whose authentic revelations enabled him to restore the true Church of Jesus Christ, or because contemporary Restorationists like Alexander Campbell first identified correct Early Christian beliefs and practices that were later adopted by Joseph Smith? In other words, did God use the broader Restoration movement of the American frontier as an “Elias” that prepared Rigdon and eventually thousands of souls to embrace the true Church of Jesus Christ restored later by Joseph Smith, or was Joseph Smith’s success in duplicating many Early Christian beliefs and practices the result of his simply mimicking the beliefs and practices of contemporary Restorationist preachers who got it right first?  Because Campbellite converts to Mormonism such as Parley Pratt reported that they were converted Mormonism because they were inspired by the truthfulness of the doctrine contained in the Book of Mormon (Source), it seems the answer to that question depends on whether the Book of Mormon is an accurate translation of an authentic record compiled by Early Christians living on the American continent, or is a fabrication cobbled together by Smith and possibly others inspired by the Restorationist ethos that pervaded the American frontier when it was published.  (We know where Alexander Campbell stood on that question: in 1831 he denounced the Book of Mormon as a fraud because it all-too-coincidentally addressed “every error and every truth discussed in New York for the last ten years.”)  (Alexander Campbell, “The Mormonites,”  Millenial Harbinger 2, (January 1831): 93.)

Regardless of the answer, Will the Real Heretics Stand Up suggests that the modern Christian denominations that most resemble the pre-Nicene Church’s beliefs and practices (i.e., Anabaptists and offspring of Restorationist movements) are relatively obscure groups that are popularly regarded as being on the outskirts (or on the outside) of Christianity today.

[Pictured below, left to right: Alexander Campbell, Sidney Rigdon, and Joseph Smith.]

This is an adaptation of a post my good friend Ron wrote. He is Catholic, so with his consent I have modified some of it to fit the audience here, as well as added some of my own thoughts. It was inspired by some of his encounters with a “rather nasty Fundamentalist Christian” who was “more interested in winning an argument, rather than learning.” These points, however, may be applied to anyone who wants to prove other people wrong rather than understand or learn.

“After spending years debating James White, I have noticed common tactics employed by people who want to win at any cost rather than seek a mutual understanding of the facts or even work toward a mutual disagreement. Ann Coulter is a good example of a political satirist who engages in this sort of rhetoric. Let’s take a close look, shall we?”

1. Make an outrageous claim. It doesn’t matter if it’s out of Mormon Doctrine, or if you take a comment out of context, or if the side you’re on is just as guilty as those you are making accusations against. The goal is not to be fair minded or even accurate; all you need to be concerned with is igniting an emotional response from the other person. Remember, you are always right and your opponent is always wrong; your job is simply to supply enough rope for your opponent to hang himself. Manipulative (e.g. “Don’t you think _____?”) and leading questions are also really effective here.

2. Rely on mocking or sarcasm to ignite passion. If you are of a conservative ilk, rely on a mocking or morally superior tone to deliver your message (Ann Coulter). If you are liberal use a lot of sarcastic humor to exalt yourself above your opponent’s attempts at presenting himself/herself as morally superior (Al Franken).

3. Do not give an inch. If your opponent happens to stumble upon a true statement, ignore, deny, or reframe the conversation! In all cases, NEVER concede even a minor point to your opponent. Also, be sure to ignore any sincere questions by your opponent. In the very least do not answer them directly. Again, the point is not to help the other person understand you, but to prove they are wrong.

4. Make Your opponent work harder. Always remember that you are right, regardless of the facts presented, and you will eventually prove it by weathering any storm that may be created due to the information your opponent happens to give you. Most importantly, put them in a place where they feel like they have to prove you wrong. If they present troubling information to you about your own position simply refuse to acknowledge it. The fact is your opponent is either a brainwashed innocent or at worst, a conniving interloper who has no right to challenge your superior position, and only appears to have the nerve to do so without merit.

5. Do not bother reading posts or listening to response from your opponent. After all, reading your opponent’s posts may ignite emotions within yourself, or take your mind off your primary goal, WINNING! Instead of reading, skim your opponent’s post for statements that can be molded to aid you in your ultimate goal. The best statements are usually the most irrelevant to your opponents point–why re-post something meaningful or relevant? Oh, and make sure you continue to apply the steady drumbeat or either mocking/moral superiority, or sarcastic humor.

6. Stay the course! Or leave! Whatever you do, just don’t engage! Eventually your opponent will either hang himself or simply tire of the interaction; in both cases, you must declare victory immediately. Like any good staring contest it is not the person that presents the best case who wins, but the person who is left standing. If it just keeps going you may want to consider eventually checking out. There are two ways to do this, either just disappear quietly until the next post comes along that you can slam, or make a big announcement about why you are not coming back. Try to make everyone reading it feel bad about your departure, and say self-deprecating stuff like “I guess I’m just not popular here”). Whatever you do, NEVER admit to any good points the other side made in their last comment, and when you come back, make sure it is only to attack again.

How can we avoid this? How can we learn together even when we disagree?

1. Ask sincere, open-ended questions. Look around and you’ll be surprised how little actually happens. Example, “What do you think about _____?” Amazing concept, but so often we end up trying to trip each other. Make sure your questions are not meant to lead the other person down a particular path, or that you don’t have some hidden underlying agenda.

2. If you use sarcasm or a lot of humor, be kind. Even if you don’t like emoticons, make sure others understand your intention, and don’t use it as a weapon. I know many people (myself included) like to use mocking now and then, but we must refrain.

3. Acknowledge (write in your replies) when the other person has a good point. Or, *gasp* when they say something you agree with.

4. Monitor the conversation to make sure it is not one-sided. Is there always one person on the attack and the other constantly on defense, or is it more even-handed?

5. Consider the whole comment. Don’t just pick out stuff to argue with.

6. Apologize when appropriate. Take a break when you need to, but don’t completely check out or make threats when you get upset. Come back and engage. We can all learn from each other.

7. When in doubt, ask Ray what to do. He will have the answer.

Why do you converse with others online? More specifically, why do you engage in commenting back and forth with other people on Mormon Matters? To share your views? To influence others? To learn from others?

What is your method of going about this? Debate? Crafting arguments? Sharing and working towards mutual understanding? What are the pros and cons of the different ways?

Having said that, I need to point out that depression and issues relative to similar physiological difficulties that suppress our joy and impede our growth in this life can be an exception to that last statement. I hope NOBODY takes what I said above as a reason to feel guilty over their struggles to conquer those types of difficulties. I realize completely that there are some things for some people for which enduring to the end is the only course. That’s why medical help should NEVER be stigmatized in any way for depression or other similar challenges. If proper medication provides a degree of peace for someone, taking that medication is an act of establishing a degree of accountability that will be rewarded, imo.

I believe the whole doctrine of accountability is one of the most beautiful in Mormonism. It see it as so much more expansive than restrictive. We tend to focus on the “punitive” aspects of accountability (“You are responsible for the effects of your actions when you are accountable and will be punished for your mistakes.”), but we also should understand more fully the “merciful” aspects of that same principle. (“You are not responsible for the effects of your actions when you are not accountable and will be covered by God’s grace for those mistakes.”)

We understand and acknowledge openly the concept as it relates to the “extremes” (children and the mentally handicapped on one end; fully accountable adults on the other end), but we often overlook it when dealing with the “emotionally handicapped” and the “abused” and any others whose thoughts and actions are influenced by things they didn’t choose – things often outside their full control. We are learning more and more about how to treat these things, but I believe there are still so many manifestations of these types of issues which we haven’t even identified completely. Therefore, “Judge not” becomes an even more vital command.

Having spent much time talking with many people who struggle mightily with feelings of guilt and isolation and despair and unworthiness, I have come to believe that many of them do so largely because, to some degree, they are wired to do so (either at birth or through trauma) – that they simply can’t help those feelings of despair and guilt that arise out of unrealistic expectations. I believe strongly that those people are not “accountable” for their actions during those times of guilt and despair in quite the same way as others are without those episodes. I’m not saying that they are completely free from the responsibility to understand their condition and try to “repent” (simply meaning “change”); I believe all have the command to look inward at themselves, identify their weaknesses and strive to improve.  What I am saying is that “repentance” in these cases often is as much (if not more) about learning practical coping mechanisms (including taking medication) and proactively acquiring personal characteristics than it is about the classic “exercise of will” often associated with repentance.

If we understood more fully that accountability is the concept that allows repentance to be a positive thing (that we have been given the freedom to proactively participate in the progress of our souls – to construct a process of growth that includes almost anything that helps us become “righteous” (right / in harmony with God), I believe we could begin to tackle the “natural” guilt associated with the effects of the Fall in a much more productive and ennobling manner than we tend to do currently.  We could separate “sin” (for which we are accountable), “transgression” (for which we might or might not be accountable), “weakness” (for which we are not accountable) and “natural, mortal crap” (which just is, well, crap).

So, how do you think of accountability?  Do you see it as a positive or negative concept?  How do you think what we now call “disabilities” affect accountability?  Are there other things that you believe reduce or impact accounatbility?  What are some things that we often associate with sin and guilt that you believe should not be classified as sin and induce guilt?  How do you feel about taking medication to alter one’s natural moods and/or actions? What are any other implications of accountability that are not addressed in this post?

I find Jude 1:4, 8-10 to be absolutely fascinating.  I have eliminated the skipped verses (5-7) and focused directly on the underlying attitude addressed in the overall passage and one specific application of it – and its implication for each and every one of us as we converse without being able to see each other.  Verse 4 reads:

There are certain men crept in unawares, . . . turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness . . .

The guests on Oprah were young transgenders, who underwent hormone therapy and/or a sex change operation because they felt they had been born into the wrong body. One had been born a boy, but was living as a woman. The other had been born a girl and was now living as a man.

The more that I witness the personal stories of such people, the harder it is for me (or anyone, in my opinion) to deny that what they feel is extremely real and often devastating, depending on the support — or lack of it — that they receive from their loved ones.

I found the story of the young girl-to-man especially compelling. It was interesting to see old pictures of when he was a little girl. You could see the unhappiness and, more than anything, the awkwardness. I don’t mean to be mean, but she was a very homely girl. Why? Because she looked like a boy in a wig and dress. Now that “she” has become a “he,” he looks normal.  I never would have guessed that he had been born female.

His mother described the living hell that their family went through when this young girl was suicidal because of her mental and emotional agony. As soon as she began with hormone therapy and started on the road to becoming a man, he became a happy person, and the depression and suicidal feelings disappeared. Being Mormon, I tried to imagine being in the position of that mother, who wasn’t Mormon. If she had followed Church policy on gender — which, from what I understand includes excommunication for those who undergo transgender operations — and pushed for her daughter to continue living as a girl, the daughter very likely would have taken her life or at least remained terribly depressed her entire life. Talk about feeling torn.

I’m not a mother.  For those of you who are a parent, think about it.  If your teenage child was suicidal and you knew that the “remedy” (i.e. a sex change operation) is grounds for excommunication, what would you do?  Yes, you could go through the rounds of fasting, prayer, and hope.  But what if that wasn’t enough?  What if your child was still suicidal or at least extremely miserable?  Would you feel torn between your (or your child’s) membership in the Church vs. his or her happiness and well-being?

I find especially perplexing the question of those people who are born intersex.

“Intersexuality is the state of a living thing of a gonochoristic species whose sex chromosomes, genitalia, and/or secondary sex characteristics are determined to be neither exclusively male nor female. An intersex organism may have biological characteristics of both the male and female sexes. Intersexuality is the term adopted by medicine during the 20th century applied to human beings who cannot be classified as either male or female.” (Wikepedia)

If the parents of an intersex child feel forced to decide which gender the child should become through surgery, in order to allow for a future opportunity to serve a mission or marry in the temple, is that any different than transgender operations by those who feel that they’re trapped in the wrong body?  The parents and doctors might be wrong, and the child could grow up to feel trapped in the wrong body.  To me, I think that would be worse than being intersex.

In “The Family: A Proclamation To The World,” the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles stated:

“All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”

Where does this leave intersex people? They’re neither one nor the other. Do they have to choose? Is their gender determined by how they feel, or is it determined purely by biology, which is sometimes still ambiguous?  Would someone who is intersex be able to serve a mission?  Marry in the temple?  What would life be like in a church where gender is virtually everything to someone’s identity, when s/he is neither one nor the other, or perhaps feels that his/her mind does not match his/her body?

I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like if someone said to me, “FD, you are a man, so you just need to accept it. You need to start thinking, acting, walking, talking, and dressing like a man. And therefore you should be attracted to women.”

Can you imagine what it would be like if you had to convince yourself that you were actually the opposite sex that you think and feel you are?

I agree with the the “Proclamation On The Family” that “(G)ender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” I believe that our gender is eternal and that Heavenly Father didn’t just leave it up randomly to our DNA to decide whether we would be one gender or the other.

But…

I’m thinking more and more that gender really is a state of mind and spirit: one that is as much a part of us as all the other aspects of our spirit and intelligence. I am female because I feel and act female. If I were sitting in a male body at this very moment but with the same mind that I have now, would I consider myself to not be female?

Heavenly Father can and does allow some of us to be born into bodies that are defective or imperfect, for reasons that are often a mystery to us. The physical state of such individuals does not change their spirit. Could it not also be the same case with physical gender? Could he not have allowed certain individuals to be born into the “wrong” physical body, which then causes a conflict with their spirit, which is of a different gender?

We are taught in Mormonism that our physical bodies are imperfect, subject to disease and defect, and that our spirits and intelligences are eternal. Why, then, should our gender be defined solely by our physical bodies? Should not the mind and spirit take precedence over the body?

A commenter, Chedner, from the discussion on my blog said:

“Say, for example, a young man came to his father or his Bishop or any of his Priesthood leaders and said, “I feel like I am innately a girl.”  Would it not be easy to take a day or two of fasting, scripture study, meditation, and end with a sincere Priesthood blessing to discern the true, eternal gender of that child?  One may be surprised to find that this child’s mother was supposed to have a little girl, but something went awry within the womb and a male body was formed instead.  How is that not possible?  It doesn’t threaten any LDS doctrines. Nothing in our canon has to be further revealed, nothing has to be altered or made more perfect.  We simply need to fully embrace what we do have: gender existed in the pre-existence; our bodies are imperfect and prone to birth defects.”

A non-member commenter and trangender woman, Just Jennifer, had this to say:

“Simply put, our “gender” is inherent. It is something that is fixed at birth. And yes, it is anatomical, but not in the way that some think. A better term is “sexual differentiation of the brain.” And our genitals may be sexually differentiated at odds with our brains. It all has to do with hormone levels in utero. I was born a male physically. But my brain was female. I struggled for much of my life, not knowing what was wrong. Even when I figured it all out, it took some more years to reach the point where I understood what could be done to rectify the situation. I am now a happy and successful woman. And I am closer to God than I was as a very unhappy parody of a man. Those who wish to tell people like me that I should “just deal with it” are both ignorant and cruel.”

Zoe, a non-member transgender woman said:

“Your post shows not just compassion, but true understanding of a situation most people find incomprehensible. I can’t blame them either, it’s no easier for those of us in this situation. Many of us go through decades of denial, trying to be like others around us.”

Another commenter from my blog, Mina, a non-Mormon, had this to say:

“I just want to say thank you so very much for an amazingly compassionate position from all of you – as a trans-woman myself, I’m not used to such understanding from deeply religious people.  I’ll be honest in that this aspect of who I am caused me years of anguish. I had grown up in a very conservative Dutch Reformed community, and even though I knew I was different from a very early age – 4 or 5 if I remember correctly, I denied it into my mid 20′s. Then I came across a very interesting opinion piece by a young Catholic priest. Basically he took the position that we need to remember the Fall from Grace, and that one of God’s punishments was visitation of pests and plagues on Adam and his descendants. The world was MADE imperfect then and there, including how we develop from conception. We humans have added to this imperfection through chemical pollution and the like, and so intersex and transsex are to be expected.”

After reading her comment, I thought, “How sad, that a human being having been born into such difficult life circumstances could be met by anything BUT compassion from deeply religious people.  Can we Mormons do any better?”

What do you think?  Are we over-simplifying the teachings on eternal gender by Church leadership by interpreting them to mean that either male or female physical body parts are the only factors that determine spiritual gender?  Or are transgender and intersex people simply suffering from a mental and emotional trial which they need to bear through this mortal life?

Growing up with younger siblings, I always had a hard time believing that Satan couldn’t possess kids under the age of eight.  And that goes for myself too, since if what my parents have said is true, I was a bit of a devil child.  But, in all seriousness, I have some questions that make it hard for me to not see conflicts between the doctrine of the Age of Accountability and other Church doctrine.

“From latter-day revelation, we know that little children are redeemed through the mercy of Jesus Christ. The Lord said, “They cannot sin, for power is not given unto Satan to tempt little children, until they begin to become accountable before me” (see D&C 29:46–47). They are not to be baptized until they reach the age of accountability, which the Lord has revealed to be eight years of age (see D&C 68:27; Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 17:11). Anyone who claims that little children need baptism “denieth the mercies of Christ, and setteth at naught the atonement of him and the power of his redemption” (Moroni 8:20; see also verses 8–19, 21–24).” (LDS.org, Topic Definition, Little Children And Baptism)

I’ve always wondered, then, why some kids under the age of eight can do bad things — really bad things — like commit murder, sexual assault, etc.  Although such occurrences are rare, they have happened and I wonder how the doctrine of the Age of Accountability and the power of Satan can explain them.

We believe that God can only influence us to do good and Satan can only influence us to do bad. But since “power is not given unto Satan to tempt little children, until they begin to become accountable before (God),” how are they even capable of doing bad things? That children are influenced by adults and the world around them is certain. Those children under the age of eight who do commit crimes are clearly under the influence of someone or something, but I’m not exactly sure what it is.

A seven year-old who stabs his playmate or displays sexual aggression is not accountable for what he has done and is not guilty of sin in the eyes of God. I understand that. But what is the power driving a child to commit such a crime? If someone is not forcing him to do it, what is influencing him, if not Satan?

I’ve also wondered about how the Age of Accountability applies to matters of homosexuality and gender confusion.  From as far as I can remember (which is about age 4 or 5), I have known that I was attracted to boys (I am female). I was too young to know what a heterosexual was or that I was one. I simply knew that I wanted to chase boys. Many homosexuals and transgenders report much the same thing: that they knew from a very young age that they were either attracted to the same sex, or perhaps felt that their physical gender was in conflict with their mental/emotional gender. Even if they were too young to understand the technicalities or significance of these feelings, they were at least able to recognize the feelings in themselves.

So, getting back to how this applies to children under eight and how Satan cannot influence them, it seems to me that in order for this doctrine of the Age of Accountability to be true, homosexual or gender conflict cannot be categorized as “temptation.”  And if it’s not a temptation, then how can it be from Satan?  If the homosexual feelings or gender confusion (not acts, but desires) are temptations coming from Satan, enticing them to engage in homosexual behaviour or making them desire a gender reassignment operation (both of which are potentially grounds for excommunication among adults), then how could a little child under the age of eight ever be capable of experiencing them? If Satan has no power over them, then they can’t come from him. But to say they come from God would be blasphemous in the eyes of many.  God can only encourage us to go good, while Satan can only entice us to do evil.

So, in conclusion, I have two questions:

1.) How are some children under the age of eight capable of committing heinous crimes, without being forced into it by anyone, if Satan has no power over them?

2.) How can a child under the age of eight experience homosexual desire and/or gender conflict if such thoughts and feelings are to be classified as temptations from the adversary?

We really do worship a different Jesus than you do.

I mention sometimes to my family and friends my frustration over certain song lyrics and how they influence how we view Jesus, his mortality and His perfection. I realize it bothers my wife that I obsess over two particular phrases, from two particular songs, but they represent to me much of what is wrong (even “abominable”) about the perceptions and teachings that have come down to us through the ages.  These phrases are:

“Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes,” (Away in a Manger) and “He never got vexed when the game went wrong, and he always told the truth.”  (Jesus Once Was a Little Child)

Then I realize that the second song is a uniquely Mormon song, and I recognize that the fruits of the Great Apostasy still have not been rooted out of our minds completely.

I use the song lyrics simply to illustrate the tendency for people to deny, in practical terms, His humanity – His mortal half. Really, who even can imagine a normal baby who never cries?  I’ve had six children go through (or currently be in) every stage that is normal to children, and that image is totally foreign to me.  Just as importantly, I also use the lyrics to highlight the way that “perfection” is interpreted now in our society (and too often in church, as well) as opposed to in the scriptures themselves.

Just to consider in light of the image of a crying baby and a vexed child: There is a difference between “sin” and “transgression”. One is a willful choice; one is a mistake made in ignorance or without real choice. The latter “transgression” is MUCH broader than most people realize, and it is captured wonderfully in our 2nd Article of Faith. I want to focus this post on how we view the word “transgression” – and the implications of that view on our eternal progression, particularly in this earthly life.

As an example of something that is quite serious but done in ignorance, think of a child born in a home where terrorism is taught as a way of life. Great rewards are promised for suicide death in the name of God. (If you can call life with many virgins a reward, but that is for another post.)  If that young boy grows up and carries out a suicide bombing that kills people, is his action a “sin” or a “transgression”? How can we really know for sure – seeing only the result and not what caused it? If he were mentally disabled, we would understand and allow for an exception. How can we be sure exactly what constitutes “mental disability” in God’s eyes – exactly what one person understands or does not understand?

Another example – a very emotional one: We are commanded to abstain from sex with anyone who is not our spouse. In the case of rape, there is a sin (the one who rapes) AND there is a transgression (the one who is raped). The victim does not sin, even though the commandment truly is broken – since sex outside of marriage has occurred. The Atonement covers that “technical violation”, since it was not done intentionally or willfully. Therefore, the victim remains “clean” in the eyes of God – as if no law had been broken.

Now, turn to the example of Jesus. We know he was subject to the Fall because of his mother’s fallen status. This means that He inherited from her the ability to “sin”, but it also means He inherited from her the same type of weaknesses and inclinations and tendencies to “transgress” as we do from our mortal parents. ***This means that he had to go through the process of overcoming His “natural man” exactly like we do.*** The only difference is the lack of actual sin.

Have you ever considered that Jesus was acting in His role as Redeemer (Payor of a debt) and Savior (Rescuer from the Fall) for everyone else, but also as Savior for Himself? Lest I be called a heretic, remember, I also believe He never “sinned” by acting in opposition to what He understood and knew. I’m just saying that we are not held accountable for our transgressions; as the 2nd Article of Faith says, the Atonement paid for them. Therefore, I believe, the Atonement also paid for His transgressions, as well – those “innocent” mistakes He made as a child and as He was learning and growing from grace to grace. His crying as a baby didn’t need to be included, since crying is not a transgression, but his actions or words while vexed during a game or his childish untruths (if he told them) would not be imputed as “sin” if he didn’t know better at the time.  He probably was a more naturally obedient child than most (although some of the smartest, most gifted children are the biggest handful), but I think it’s instructive that, like other prophets, He was not accepted “in His own country” – by those who watched Him grow up as just a normal child in their eyes. It’s difficlut to believe that would have been the case if he had been the “perfect little angel” of our songs.

I believe when He condescended to come to earth, He agreed to do so in a way that put Him in subjection to the Fall – so He could experience EVERY aspect of mortality that we do. I believe that in doing so there had to be a way provided for *all* of us to be freed from the effects of the Fall – including He who condescended to become as one of us – in every way other than succumbing to actual sin.

In the end, I return to how “perfection” was applied under the Law of Moses (and in Lucifer’s plan) – never making a mistake and following everything with exactness, generally at threat of punishment. I then look at Matthew 5:48 and see that Jesus defined it as “complete, finished, fully developed” – covering lots of mistakes by allowing for repentance and focusing on spiritual growth toward an eventual completion of character. I read of his final statement on the cross in that context (“It is finished.”) and see in it his acknowledgment that his own exaltation had been worked out – that he was complete – that he could say, legitiamtely, to the Nephites when he appeared to them, “even as I, or your father who is in heaven in perfect.” If we understand this difference in the scriptural meaning of perfection, I believe it can change and empower the way we look at Jesus – and our children and our friends and our fellow saints and our leaders – and ourselves, making us much more able to “have joy” in this life and in the life to come.

Just as I believe we can allow him to cry as a baby and become vexed as a child and still maintain our acceptance of him as a God, I believe we can allow ourselves to be human without being overwhelmed by guilt as a result.

Are there any other lyrics that bother you when it comes to describing Jesus – at any point in his life?  I am interested particularly in those that deny his humanity, but would like to hear of others – and why they bother you.  Are there other ways that you believe doctrine has evolved over the years and added unnecessary guilt to our simple existence as mortals in a fallen world?  Am I off my rocker when discussing Jesus’ Atonement applying to himself, as well?

You dropped down into this crazy, frenetic, gloomy world; stumble and trip in the darkness, trying to feel your way through the valley of shadows.  Nothing seems to work right.

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You make mistakes, some of which cause deep pains of regret.  If only you had known better …  but then again, how could you have known?  You had to experience it first hand to understand.

People have done wrong to you!  They hurt you.  Where is the justice?  They should be made to pay.  Somehow, an eye for an eye does not satisfy.

Two people are blind now.  The pain remains.

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If only you could go back and become a little child again, innocent, hands and face cleaned up, band aid on your skinned knee, clothes mended, and a warm meal in your belly.  Is there a way to go back in time, hit the cosmic reset button and do that over again?  No.  The road has many lanes, but they all go one direction.

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Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world.

It’s going to be ok.  God knows you are making mistakes.  You are loved.  You are good.  You are totally accepted as you are.  Let go of your anger and your hurt.  Lay down your guilt.  Can you do that?  Do you want to?  The decision is yours when you are ready.  You may have to do this many times.  Don’t let it paralyze you, afraid to continue walking.  Don’t carry that heavy burden like a cross.  Give it to Him.  He will trade you for peace.

Follow the path of the Savior through the valley.  He made it to the other side.  You will get there too.

Residents of California (Prop 8), Arizona (Prop 102), and Florida (Prop 2) will be voting on propositions which would amend their state constitutions to define marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, that is not news. You have probably been overwhelmed with rhetoric from all angles. My goal here is to summarize what I have observed as the large-scale effects of this issue.

The Last Battleground

It wasn’t that far back when the official LDS Church position on homosexuality was that it is a moral and behavioral issue, chosen by individuals who succumb to deviant temptations. As such, the majority of faithful Mormons and Evangelical Christians were opposed to even civil unions for gay couples. The “umbrella issue” was that if any form of acceptance or recognition is granted to homosexuals it would be interpreted by society, and most importantly – our children— as condoning that behavior.

Today, it seems that footholds have slipped on the muddy moral/civil rights battlefield and Religion is making one last stand. Fortunately, the LDS Church has conceded that homosexuality, in many cases, is not a choice and goes beyond mere social influence and personal will. Furthermore, Mormons and Christians, in the current campaigns, seem to have conceded civil unions almost completely, even using them as a counter-argument to suggestions that the propositions violate equal rights. These are positive changes. And yet, in spite of these concessions, the “umbrella issue” remains the same –homosexuality, while understandable, even pitiable, is not acceptable, nor equal. Equality is the last battleground in the war for gay rights.

Special Treatment

The umbrella issue is often presented as being about giving special rights and special treatment to gay couples. This is troublesome, because really what gays are trying to achieve is only an equal level of treatment. Sometimes it might appear that gay rights get an inordinate amount of public attention, but there are two reasons for that. One reason is that gay rights are currently not recognized in consensus, so they have to “talk louder” than normal volume just to be heard. The other reason is that traditional marriage is so common and taken for granted that we just don’t notice how much attention and treatment it gets. There is far more time given to the subject of traditional marriage in media, entertainment, education, and public life than all other kinds of relationships combined. It is so common that it has blended seamlessly into the canvas and anything of a different color jumps right out.

The Real Cause

Arguments like these are only deflections from the more uncomfortable reality. It is a remnant of the belief that homosexuality is a behavior that can be disciplined out of society. The goal of these propositions is not to protect society from special treatment for non-traditional lifestyles, it is to protect society from equal treatment of them. The reasoning is that a lifestyle afforded equal treatment is essentially considered morally equal by society. In a world where homosexuals are considered moral human beings with equal potential to contribute to the moral health of the society as anyone else, there is a fear that children will more commonly consider “choosing” the gay lifestyle, thus producing more and more gay people.

The reality is that such a world would produce no more or less gay people than in a discriminating society. It would only produce more happy and healthy people among them. It would save some lives, too. That same blanket of shame and disapproval that exists in our current society about homosexuality, that which the current movements are trying to preserve for the good of the children, is the weight which suffocates thousands of human beings – children of God – and drives them to suicide. If being gay was a choice that could be intimidated out of a person by restricting privileges, how did we get to this point now with so many gay people fighting for their right to be gay? Being gay has been anything but comfortable or convenient up until now and yet it is not keeping people from being gay. Of course, that is because they can’t choose it. If they could, the beatings – physical and emotional – they have received for so long would have accomplished their goal.

Sanctifying Our Own Paths

Aside from sympathizing with the plight of homosexuals, there is another problem with the social engineering approach. It is the idea that what is sacred to me is defined by what someone else is allowed to make sacred to them. Most Mormons have known people who drink alcohol, smoke, have tattoos, use profanity, do not observe the Sabbath, do not pray, think the temple is weird, think garments are weird, etc. etc. Yet, somehow we are able to continue to sanctify the human body, the temple, our garments, the Sabbath, and other aspects of our lives without taking away the right for those other people to live the way they do.

Sacred is the life we live, not the life we keep others from living. The sanctity of your family is nothing more than the sanctity of *your family*. If society celebrates the straight couple across the street it does not make your marriage more sanctified. If society denigrates the gay couple next door it does not make your marriage more sanctified. You can only sanctify your family by the way you live and love within your own home.

A Failed Experiment

Social engineering doesn’t work in either direction. It has not worked to keep people from being gay. Whether they are in-and-miserable or out-and-happy, they are still gay. It has not worked to elevate traditional marriage. More than half of one-man/one-woman marriages end in divorce. Less people are getting married in general. Even in the Gold Standard of LDS temple marriages, LDS Church leaders receive a constant flow of letters about the epidemic of pornography, spousal and child abuse, and unrighteous dominion.

Quite surprising too is willingness for Mormons to use the law to impose social engineering, considering our heritage of being on the victim end of that stick. Haun’s Mill. Far West. Nauvoo. The Reed Smoot Hearings. Have we fully considered the implications of creating a precedent for the constitution being used to impose an unequal morality on its citizens? Are we so sure that there is nothing about our lifestyle that might be at odds with a large enough segment of society that could seek to impose laws against us next?

The Sun Will Rise Again On November 5th

Regardless of the results of the ballots, the sun will rise again the next day. The congregations which employed the rhetoric of war and valiance will take attendance again the next Sunday. The home teachers of the gay members will have to stare at the phone number on the assignment sheet with a phone in hand. Family members will have to sit at the Thanksgiving dinner table across from their relatives who stood on the other side. Gay people will still be gay and traditional families will be no more sanctified than the day before.

We will need to forgive. We will need to love. Each day more than the last. I hope we can. I hope I can.

Psalms 55:22 says, in part: “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee.”

Note that this is singular (“burden”) – not plural (“burdens”).

Ether 12:27 says: “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”

Note that this is singular (“weakness”) – not plural (“weaknesses”).

Matthew 11:28-30 includes the following: “Take my yoke upon you.”

Here is what I learned:

The concepts in these three verses constitute a complete solution; without the first and second, the third is impossible – and even destructive.

In simple terms, the Lord wants us to cast our “burden” at His feet and pick up the “yoke” that He knows will give us strength and bring eternal life. In a very real way, he asks us to exchange loads. Please take a moment to create that mental picture. Envision yourself removing a pack from your back or shoulders, setting it aside, then picking up a new pack to carry instead. If we fail to leave our own natural burden with Him, then all we do when we assume the responsibilities of membership in His kingdom is to pick up a second pack and increase a load we already are unable to bear alone.

That, in my mind, is the central power of the Atonement – of His grace and mercy. He will shoulder our burden, if we shoulder His. Each of us needs to figure out what this means in our own lives, with our own personalities and struggles, but, at a minimum, we need to accept His atoning grace and quit beating ourselves up over our natural weakness – that for which He has paid the price already. (See the 2nd Article of Faith.) We need to recognize and accept the forgiveness He has offered already. We need to believe Him and what He has promised us.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by guilt or inadequacy or the burdens of your life, may I suggest a simple solution – not an easy one and not one that always will happen completely and all at once, but the only one of which I know that truly will work. Find a quiet place, where you can kneel totally alone and unable to hear anything else, and pour out your soul to your Heavenly Father – able to approach Him directly because of the grace of His Son. Tell Him of your anxieties, your fears, your weakness, your pain – then ask Him to take the burden from you and help you walk away from it. Repeat that request (something like, “I gave it to you; please help me leave it at your feet.”) whenever you begin to feel overwhelmed – even if it means you have to do so sometimes in the middle of the confusion and chaos of your daily life. Take a deep breath, close your eyes if you can, and ask Him to intercede once more and keep you from picking up your natural load.

I have a deep and abiding testimony that if you cast your burdens upon the Lord, He truly will sustain you as you shoulder His yoke and begin to carry the burden He has chosen to make your weakness become strength. Although I believe in the symbolism, purity and real release that can accompany baptism, a fundamental and basic burden exchange can happen within or without any particular church structure. Anyone can cast her burden upon the Lord, take His yoke upon her and find rest to her soul.

I remember when I was younger I often, for some reason, considered the case of Pontius Pilate.  I remember reading about him and perceiving him as a helpless, unwitting player in Christ’s death.  I saw him as innocent, washing his hands of the blood of Christ, wanting to help but not having the power to stem the relentless tide of the throngs of angry people wishing to put the Savior to death.  I remember one time in particular when I was very young, probably eleven or twelve, praying on my knees to ask God not to judge Pilate harshly.  It hadn’t entered my heart that I was not the first person to do this over the last couple thousand years.  I just felt closely connected to the story, and from what I read I saw him as mostly innocent.

Into my deconstructive teenage years, I read a bit more about Pilate’s life and realized that a great deal of evidence points to the idea that he may have been a cruel man, as many Roman leaders were, and that his life was anything but exemplary.  Christ was probably one of many men that Pilate sent to their death.  I saw myself as naive and almost embarrassed for thinking he was innocent.  Sometimes I think we get a strange kind of pleasure out of character deconstruction, especially historical figures, as Russ may tell you from his grad school history studies.

Yet popular opinion is as it usually is:  divided.  It’s a subject that has been explored countless times in countless places.  Certain Ethiopian Orthodox churches venerated Pilate as a saint.  Medieval European plays show him as a bureaucrat or a demon.  There are non-canonized writings that add much to the Pilate story, good and bad.

For me, I’ve found myself doing what many do:  projecting my own self onto a vacuum of evidence.  When something in history seems to have no answers, people tend to fill the void with their own agendas, and I’m no exception.  And thus we see that in some cases, when we judge the morality of others, we are actually looking at ourselves.  “Our people” I’ve noticed have somewhat of a love affair with judging the morality of those not within our stewardship (Richard Dutcher!  Brother Marriott!  Kirby Heyborne!  Emma Smith!).

In my life I have stopped wondering about the morality of others so much anymore, yet I still think of him now and then.  Thoughts on Poor Pontius Pilate?

Orson F. Whitney explained it like this:

Perhaps the Lord needs such men on the outside of his Church, to help it along. They are among its auxiliaries, and can do more good for the cause where the Lord has placed them, than anywhere else… Hence, some are drawn into the fold and receive a testimony of Truth, while others remain unconverted…the beauties and glories of the gospel being veiled temporarily from their view, for wise purpose. The Lord will open their eyes in his own due time…God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of his great and marvelous work. The Latter Day Saints cannot do it all. It is too vast, too arduous for any one people…We have no quarrel with the Gentiles. They are our partners in a certain sense.

One might compare these perceptions to a person’s reaction to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity concerning the speed of light and time perception. Basically, if one travels at the speed of light, then the perception of time slows down until time essentially ceases to exist to those outside one’s frame of reference. 

We must understand that we are asking investigators to do something similar, to stop time as it were.  The church’s claims may be possible, but they seem utterly fantastic, even absurd to the uninitiated.  So when they reject it, is it possible, as President Whitney said, that some are kept from the truth not only because they know not where to find it but also because the Lord would rather have them elsewhere for the time being?

If the Pope joined the Church (as we dreamed of during our missions), there would not likely be massive LDS baptisms, but charges of scandal, of madness, of intrigue.   If Mother Theresa had become a member, could she have retained her credibility as an international humanitarian?  Could it not be the Pope, Mother Theresa and others are/were doing their parts in the vast work of temporal and spiritual salvation?  While they might be introducing incorrect doctrines, isn’t it possible that the Lord plans on getting that straightened out later?  Maybe in the meantime, he needed Mother Theresa’s humanitarianism, Martin Luther’s defiance, and Isaac Newton’s mind right where they were.

When I evolved into a liberal Mormon, theologically and politically, my opinion of evangelicals was one of the few constants in my worldview. I still had an instinctive dislike for them, their tactics, and theology.

Now that I am more comfortable in my own skin, though, I have discovered that I actually like some evangelicals. In fact, there is an entire subsection of evangelicals from whom I have learned a great deal theologically and spiritually.

My favorite Evangelical is Brian McLaren, former pastor of Cedar Ridge Church in Maryland. Author of many books like A New Kind of Christian, The Story We Find Ourselves In, Finding Our Way: The Return of the Ancient Practices, and A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian represents the emerging church, or emergent Christianity, which some polemically have called a return to the old social gospel, but which its advocates have pointed out is much more open to spiritual practices from Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. You are as likely to find Brian and those of his kind fasting, practicing fixed-hour prayer, and campaigning for Obama as you are to find them doing the traditional Sunday morning mega-church thing.

McLaren and others like Doug Pagitt are reinvigorating evangelicalism. What was once a monochromatic phemenon is now vibrant and varied. I love the way they talk about what the message of Jesus was and is.These are the kind of evangelicals I wish I had known as a conservative Mormon kid, or as a newly-liberal Mormon young adult. They are also evangelicals who don’t seek to exclude, but rather to include, even to accept that Mormons can be followers of the way of Jesus.

These emergent Christians help me see Christ in a new way and to be excited about His message and what it means for our world right now in a way I’m not getting from other sources. Why is that?

Those who crucified Jesus did so because they could not accept Him as the one who had paid (Jehovah) and would pay (the Christ, their Messiah) for their sins. In Matthew 3:9, they said, in essence, “We don’t need you. We are children of Abraham. We are fine. We’ll do it on our own.”

We decry deathbed repentance, particularly for those who consciously choose to procrastinate repentance until the end – to do what they want to do until they are facing death and the possibility of judgment. At the same time, too many members view grace, faith and works as follows:

“I must do everything I possibly can do; I must give my all; I must wear out myself trying to do what He has asked me to do – THEN He will accept my effort and help me do more.”

That might not be the exact same mentality as “deathbed” repentance, but it is at least “hospital bed” repentance. In very real terms, it is saying, “I will let you know when I need you,” which really is the same mentality as the one who procrastinates the request for help until his deathbed. It also means that I will not receive the help He can give AS I struggle – which means I will not experience His freedom and joy until my frustration nearly (or completely) breaks me. Yes, I will then be blessed, but I will have missed SO much in the meantime.

Hillary Weeks has a song entitled “Unwritten”. The central message is, in my own words:

“As I review the pages of the book of my life, I am grateful for what I read (what I have experienced), but I am most grateful for what has remained unwritten – those things from which the grace of God has shielded me – those things I have not had to experience – those things from which I have been saved – in this life.” (Yeah, I know it’s Mormon religious pop, but it’s a great message.)

Jesus, as the Christ, offers salvation for us from the effects of our actions in the next life, but Jesus, as the exemplary man, showed us a way to be saved from much of the effect of our fallen existence in this life. In a very real way, not accepting what He paid so dearly to provide until we have exhausted ourselves is no different than not accepting that His offer was ever made in the first place, since they both tell Him to get lost until we get a handle on it on our own or when we finally need Him – implying we don’t need Him now.

His plea, however, is different:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

That is worth pondering, since there is no indication in the record itself that this promise is intended to be fulfilled solely in the hereafter.

Truly, I am grateful for both the pages in the Book of (My) Life that I read and the pages left unwritten – for the things from which He has saved me in this life.

As I was pondering the phrase “poor in spirit” recently, it hit me pretty hard that, in our modern society, we so marginalize and disdain poverty that we probably miss much of the meaning embedded in the phrase “poor in spirit” as a **desirable** trait. Therefore, I started thinking about the implications of poverty – what it means not as defined in the dictionary, but rather in practical terms. Iow, what does it mean to **BE** poor – particularly in ways that can be seen as bringing blessings?

1) Poverty is the lack of ability to purchase things. It implies an awareness of things desired that are beyond one’s ability to have or do – since recognition of poverty is a real part of the effects of poverty.

From the time I was eleven, my parents raised eight children on an elementary school janitor’s salary. Technically, we were poor, but we kids didn’t realize it until we were in high school. We *were* poor, but we didn’t *feel* poor – since we really didn’t want things beyond our parents’ ability to provide until we reached an age where we started wanting things we really didn’t need.

Being poor also means that if there are things that truly are necessary but out of one’s price range, one must rely on another person to provide those things.

2) Poverty, in and of itself, is only a “bad” thing if it keeps us from obtaining things that we truly need. For example, not having cable TV (or TV at all) and the internet is inconvenient in our time in this country, but it certainly is hard to argue that TV or the internet is truly a need – unless they are necessary for the performance of one’s job. As long as basic necessities can be met, poverty is not “evil” by any stretch of the word.

3) Poverty forces one to prioritize – to determine what things are necessary, desirable or luxurious. It forces the luxuries and desires to be placed in their proper perspective – as not essential to life and self-worth. In a very real way, it eliminates non-essential distractions and irrelevancies from life by forcing the poor to do what they need to do rather than what they want to do.

These are only a few things poverty is and does. Now, take these descriptions of poverty and re-focus them on the spiritual. What does that create?

1) Spiritual poverty is the lack of ability to acquire spiritual things. It implies an awareness of things desired that are beyond one’s ability to have or do – since recognition of poverty is a real part of the effects of poverty. It also means that if there are spiritual things that truly are necessary but out of one’s spiritual price range, one must rely on another person to provide them.

So, in this regard, being “poor in spirit” means recognizing one’s inability to “buy, earn, deserve, purchase” spiritual blessings – that, without the intervention of another, rich benefactor, one is “damned” (stopped) in his ability to grow spiritually. It means recognizing and turning to Him who is able to provide the spiritual capital she lacks. Without understanding my spiritual poverty, I would never recognize my need for help – so I would never ask for it – so I would rarely receive it – so I would not grow spiritually.

2) Spiritual poverty, in and of itself, is only a “bad” thing if it keeps people from obtaining spiritual things that they truly need. For example, not having access to spiritual communications to all is inconvenient in our time, but it certainly is hard to argue that universal communication is truly a need for every individual. As long as basic personal (including emergency) communications can be received, spiritual poverty is not evil in any stretch of the word.

3) Spiritual poverty forces one to prioritize – to determine what things are spiritually necessary, desirable or luxurious. (what is best, better, good, neutral, bad) It forces luxuries and desires to be placed in their proper perspective – as not essential to spiritual life and self-worth. In a very real way, it eliminates non-essential distractions and irrelevancies from ones’ spiritual life – by focusing the spiritually poor on what they need rather than what they want.

In summary, being poor in spirit allows a person to recognize the need for a Redeemer (someone to buy them and free them from the chains of their poor and lowly state), supplicate that Redeemer to pay for what they cannot obtain on their own, and prioritize spiritual purchases instead of those things that will not advance spiritual progression. It allows one to simplify spiritual life, recognize spiritual distractions and eliminate impediments to spiritual growth.

Thinking one is “rich in spirit”, otoh, eliminates all those needs that lead to such wonderful blessings and, in a very real sense, limits blessings to what can be accomplished and obtained on one’s own in this life and the next. A perception of spiritual richness leads one to believe he needs no help – no “redeemer” – no prioritization, since he believes he can have it all on his own. If we believe we are spiritually wealthy, we are unable to act upon and magnify the Gifts of the Spirit that are given to us (or acquire new ones) – since searching for and acknowledging spiritual gifts that come from God requires admission that we need those gifts and can’t obtain them on our own. This attitude of spiritual richness leaves one alone, isolated from the yoke that lightens burdens and provides spiritual rest. People who believe they are spiritually wealthy “have their reward” – as opposed to the Lord’s reward.

Finally, I believe that it is just as easy for those who believe they know God’s will better than others to be caught up in an attitude of spiritual richness as it is for “the heathen”. It is easy to forget that now we “see through a glass, darkly” and need to rely on God to provide a better prescription. I believe that can be seen in many discussions in the Bloggernacle – unfortunately on both sides of any discussion.

It is counterintuitive in this day and age to desire poverty (true humility), but the reward cannot be more important – nor can the negative consequences of pride be more destructive.

“Judge not, that ye be not judged.”

Jesus follows up this remark with:

“For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

The attentive latter-day saint will look in the footnotes, and remark that the Joseph Smith Translation renders these verses as:

“Now these are the words which Jesus taught his disciples that they should say unto the people. Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged: but judge righteous judgment.”

So what may have been originally taken as license to adopt an “anything goes” policy suddenly is bounded with the provision of “righteous.”

But what does this really mean?  I think that many feel that it means to judge something if it isn’t righteous, or judge someone if they are not righteous.  But is this the intent of the commandment?

Humanity’s ability to distiguish right from wrong is in essence the ability to judge.  It is a prerequisite to anyone’s capacity to develop any moral values.  In this sense, judging is absolutely crucial our spiritual development, and indispensible in our personal lives.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, himself having a background in law, gave some important insights about judgment and judging in the August 1999 Ensign.  He distinguishes “final” from “intermediate” judgments in saying that:

“There are two kinds of judging: final judgments, which we are forbidden to make, and intermediate judgments, which we are directed to make, but upon righteous principles.”

The idea that judgments are to be based on “righteous” principles is not unique to the JST or the Brethren.  The King James Bible recounts Jesus’ words as:

“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” (John 7:24)

As we try to determine what is meant by “righteous judgement,” this verse shows that it is reasonable to assume that it involves looking past “appearance,” or what/how things/people may seem to be.

Whenever people of divergent ideological persuasions get together to exchange ideas, to debate,  or simply to spar, there seems to be a good deal of judging going on.  How much of this is righteous judgment?  How much of it is—for lack of a better term—”wicked” judgment?

To what level is love and compassion compatible with judgement?  Can “righteous judgement” be expressed to someone you vehemently disagree with or disapprove of without being condemnetory or self righteous?

The Hymn “Lord I Would Follow Thee” (#220) contains the poignant line:

“Who am I to judge another, when I walk imperfectly?”

The humility implied in those words is truly admirable, but should we also be wary of giving carte-blanche to influences that we may believe are evil, hurtful, or otherwise detrimental?

I’d be very interested to get your thoughts regarding this idea of “righteous judgement”, particularly as to how it applies to our interactions with others in diverse or even divisive settings and environments.

I just spent the last week in Hollywood, so I thought it would be fun to try different readings of that title to see how the emphasis changes the meaning.  (This reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer says, “These pretzels are making me thirsty!”).

Obedience:  When the Lord Commands, Do It – with the emphasis on “obedience,”  it kind of sounds like:  “Obedience!  When the Lord Commands, Do It:  The Musical!”  The score would probably be lame.

Obedience:  When the Lord Commands, Do It – “When” as in “when and if,” or as we’ve discussed elsewhere on MM, you have to obey when it’s commanded and not when it is not (e.g. cutting off Laban’s head is A-OK when commanded, but beheading people in general is frowned upon; polygamy is grand if you’ve been asked to do it, but you may be told no if you show up at JS’s door rubbing your hands together and asking for some spiritual wife action.)

Obedience:  When the Lord Commands, Do It.  But surely, when Allah commands (or your terror cell leader says he does), you might want to think twice before you do it.  So, this reading places the emphasis on who is doing the commanding:  the Lord, one of the Lord’s servants, or your Aunt Sally telling you what she thinks the Lord wants you to do.  So–important to verify the source?

Obedience:  When the Lord Commands, Do It.  So, if the Lord’s just suggesting it (earrings & tatoos?), you could drag your feet (e.g. Oliver Cowdery translating the BOM?).

Obedience:  When the Lord Commands, Do It.  Emphasis on action (vs. thought or questioning?).  This is probably the most orthodox reading.

Obedience:  When the Lord Commands, Do It.  Well, that just makes the meaning of “it” ambigious in this context.  Which actually brings up a good point – when He commands, do what exactly?  This title isn’t really proper grammar–the pronoun “it” is lacking a direct object to the verb “commands” to explain the pronoun.  Are all commandments clear about what exactly should be done?  (Remember, we shouldn’t need to be commanded in all things).  Or is that perceived ambiguity really just an excuse to vacillate?

Think about this:  What did obedience mean to JS and to the early church members?  How has that meaning evolved over time?  What does it mean to LDS today?  What does it mean to you personally at this stage of your spiritual journey?  Here are some of JS’s thoughts on obedience from the lesson:

Earning Salvation

“To get salvation we must not only do some things, but everything which God has commanded.” (1844)

This is a clear “earning salvation” quote.  The word used here was “salvation,” although current teaching would upgrade that to “exaltation” (salvation is free for everyone through the atonement; exaltation costs extra).  How has the church’s understanding of the role of faith and works evolved?  Has the dialogue spurred by evangelical churches added clarity or confusion to our actual doctrine?  In short, why are we so doggone defensive about this?

Church Unity Imperative

“When instructed, we must obey that voice, observe the laws of the kingdom of God, that the blessing of heaven may rest down upon us. All must act in concert, or nothing can be done, and should move according to the ancient Priesthood; hence the Saints should be a select people, separate from all the evils of the world—choice, virtuous, and holy.”  (1844)

How did JS’s obsession with building an earthly kingdom of God (a Zion or city of Enoch) influence his emphasis on obedience as a means to purifying the saints into a “holy people”?  Are we still attempting to build a kingdom of God on earth today or is the church’s global status (staying put vs. gathering to Zion) shifting us toward a broader moral spectrum for practical reasons (shirtless calendar guy would probably say there is still crackdown on infractions from HQ)?  Does obedience purify us?  If so, how?  Is it important to become a “holy people” or are we fooling ourselves to think so?  Are we collectively getting holier or less holy over time?  (Evidence for “holier” = fewer apostles are being ex’d than in JS’s day).

When True Is Unpopular

“The object with me is to obey and teach others to obey God in just what He tells us to do. It mattereth not whether the principle is popular or unpopular, I will always maintain a true principle, even if I stand alone in it.” (1842)

Clearly, JS stood alone in some unpopular principles (e.g. plural marriage, King Follett discourse, etc.).  If all people have the light of Christ which tells them what is good, why are some true principles unpopular?  How can we tell if an unpopular principle is true or just outdated?  What types of peer pressure (from other churches) exist for the church?  How does the church cope with unpopular (yet true) principles? 

Principle-Based Obedience

 Joseph Smith taught the following in April 1843, later recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 130:20–21: “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.”

“All blessings that were ordained for man by the Council of Heaven were on conditions of obedience to the law thereof.” (1843)

How does the emphasis on the underlying principle (the law upon which it is predicated) vs. the obedience itself add meaning to this idea?  Here are some possible examples to consider:  temple attendance vs. temple worship, accepting a calling vs. magnifying a calling, prayer vs. seeking to know God, being born again as an event vs. enduring to the end faithfully (finishing the race).  How does changing to principle-centered worship vs. activity-centered worship make us more spiritual?  Why is it so easy to forget the underlying principles and start checking our duties off a list?

Becoming Holy Like God

“Remember, brethren, that He has called you unto holiness; and need we say, to be like Him in purity? How wise, how holy; how chaste, and how perfect, then, you ought to conduct yourselves in His sight; and remember, too, that His eyes are continually upon you.” (1834)

This is theosis teaching (on par with NT brand theosis anyway) from a very early date (10 years before King Follett breathed his last).  Does this brand of “eternal progression” distinguish LDS from other Christian sects?  How has that distinction changed over time?  Is “eternal progression” a true but unpopular principle in our day?  Is obedience requisite to progression or does it hamper progression?

Discuss.

In that light, I submit that the core of this experiential conviction is summarized perfectly in the foundational missionary verse we too often overlook while quoting those that follow. We speak constantly of the “challenge” written in Moroni 10:4-5 (although I much prefer the word “invitation”, since I see no attitude of “challenge” therein), but when I attended Seminary so long ago, the verses we memorized included Moroni 10:3 – which reads:

Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

In this verse, we are told to “remember” before we are told to ponder and pray in the next verse. Think about it. We aren’t told to read, ponder and pray; we are told to read, remember, ponder and pray – and we are told explicitly to remember how merciful the Lord has been throughout history. In effect, we are told to “experience vicariously” His grace and mercy toward others – to realize that He has spoken to people for thousands of years – to use their experiences to help us come to believe that we can have a similar experience – to believe that He will speak to us just as He spoke to them. Their experiences serve as the foundation of our faith in the expectation of our own experiences.

I think we do a terrible disservice to our religion and its missionary effort (or to those around us irrespective of their particular religion) when we preach “read, ponder and pray” apart from our collective, experiential memory – when we make gaining a testimony an intellectual, or even strictly prayerful, process void of contemplation and reflection on previous experience (both our own and others’). So, the next time you are sharing the Gospel with someone (no matter the format and no matter your denominational affiliation or lack thereof), please remember to help them “remember” by sharing how merciful the Lord has been to you before you invite them to do anything else. Testify of His grace and mercy throughout history first – of His mercy toward you second – of the fact that He can extend that same mercy to them, as well. Ground your invitation in the collective experiences of the ages, and allow them to experience a bit of their heart turning to their fathers. Too often we short-circuit that process and deprive both ourselves and others of an amazing experience.

When you “remember” how merciful the Lord has been, what is it you remember?

1) The word “praise” occurs in our scriptures 188 times. (Interestingly, this word appears in the D&C only three times, in the BofM less than 20 times, and in Psalms nearly half of the other times.) In every instance, it means nothing more than its standard dictionary definition: (n) – “expression of approval or admiration; commendation; laudation.” (v) – “to express approval or admiration of; commend; extol.”

2) “Honor” (“honour” in the Bible) is found 123 times – with 105 of those times being in the Bible and the other 18 times split almost evenly between the D&C and the BofM. The dictionary definitions all focus on “respect” – but the scriptural references add an element of obedience to those verses that deal with honoring God. They carry the distinct implication that those who “respect” God will submit to what he asks of them. (Much like John 14:15 – “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”) There is another fascinating implication – that of “honoring” God by “bringing honor to” Him.

3) “Glory” is far more common, as it is found 352 times throughout our canon, with “glorify” occurring 27 more times. Imo, the most interesting thing about these words is that “glorify” is used EXCLUSIVELY in reference to God and His name, but “glory” is used to describe many things – God, man, and the creations of both.

In the dictionary, “glory” is defined as: “resplendent beauty or magnificence; a state of great splendor, magnificence, or prosperity; a state of absolute happiness, gratification, contentment.” “Glorify”, on the other hand, is defined as: “to elevate or idealize; to cause to be or seem more glorious or excellent than is actually the case.” The first is understood to be a positive thing, while the second is seen as a negative thing.

Why do I go through this exercise in this way? Simply to illustrate the unique place these words hold within Mormonism – distinctly different than within most, if not all, other religious traditions and the dictionary itself. Mormonism has added something fundamental to the religious lexicon by claiming a distinctly different aspect to glorifying – and it is not a trivial addition.

When praise, honor and glory are used within orthodox Christianity, they are used to mean simply what the dictionary itself states – namely, the utmost admiration, respect, splendor and magnificence. “Giving glory to God” generally can be summarized as praising Him (e.g., “Our God is an awesome God.”) and recognizing that He is so far beyond us that it is impossible to make Him “be or seem more glorious or excellent than is actually the case.” Therefore, we “glorify God” by “elevating or idealizing” Him, but we are not to “glorify” others (including ourselves) by making us “be or seem more glorious or excellent than is actually the case.”

This is the heart of the charge of blasphemy leveled against Mormonism – that in its presentation of the doctrine of exaltation and Celestial Glory, it elevates and idealizes humanity beyond what is actually the case to a state that should be reserved only for God. Since God alone is elevated above us, anything that *appears* to place us as equals is considered heretical – an act of “glorifying” man and not just God, as they believe the Bible so clearly states should be.

How do Mormons reconcile this dilemma? Ironically, by keeping the basic definition of praise and honor in place but changing radically the overarching (or underpinning, whichever seems more apt) principle of glory to fit more closely the differing degrees or applications in our canon – specifically the Bible. (That is truly ironic, since the Book of Mormon says next to nothing on this topic.)

Mormonism takes the basic concept of “glory” being applied to God and all His creation and focuses on the concept of growing through glories taught most directly in a few NT passages:

1) 2 Cor. 3:18 says, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

2) 1 Cor. 15:40-41 says, “There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

3) John 17 contains some fascinating verses, including the following:

a) verse 4: “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

b) verses 10-11: “And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

4) Matthew 5:48 says, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (This verse is the subject of an upcoming post.)

By citing these verses and many others like them, Mormonism places “glorifying God” in a different light. It posits that “this is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39) – in practical terms, defining the process of glorification as the accomplishment of Matthew 5:48 and John 17:11, among many others. Within all of Christianity (including Mormonism), praising, honoring and glorifying God are used to elevate and separate Him from us, but within Mormonism, His praise and honor and glory is defined as flowing from His grace and mercy in changing us to become like Him and His Son – in truly making us “perfect, even as (He) is perfect” and “one, as (He and His Son) are one”.

What separates Mormonism at the most fundamental level from the rest of Christianity is that we take these and other similar scriptures literally – and that literalness changes the very core of our view of God’s glory. We don’t praise and honor His glory; we praise and honor him by realizing that we are His glory, unworthy though we are and everlastingly “below Him” though we also ever will be. We give glory to God, our Eternal Father, in the same way that my children give glory to me – by becoming what I hope and pray they become, NOT by telling me how wonderful I am.

I believe the following is a false dichotomy, but If I had to choose between my children praising, honoring or glorifying me (as I believe each is defined and laid out in our scriptures), I would choose glorifying every time. I can live happily without verbal expressions of praise and honor (“admiration and respect”); frankly, I don’t really care what is said nearly as much as what is done. What I really care about is what my children become – that they maximize their glory (“beauty, magnificence, splendor, [spiritual] prosperity, absolute happiness, gratification, contentment”). If that happens, I truly will be glorified myself; if not, no praise or honor will make up for it – and my Mormon self simply can’t picture God being any different, given what I believe is taught in the New Testament.

In a Priesthood lesson a few months ago, we were discussing “things I’ve learned in life” – everyone taking turns sharing something with everyone else. He said something that broke my heart – that I am sure I will never forget. This brilliantly humble man, whose Gospel knowledge blows us all away but who sits quietly throughout most lessons and just listens, said:

“I have learned that our deepest and most difficult trials can bring us closer to God than anything else can. I am profoundly grateful for that lesson; I just wish I had not had to learn it the way I did.”

2) In high school, I was blessed to sing for David Dahlquist, one of the most impressive musicians and directors I have ever met. (A song he wrote – “Lullaby” – took second place in the 1980 All-Church Music Contest.)

“Mr. D” had numerous opportunities to leave our little farm community school and pursue a career at the college level and beyond. He stayed, however, because he simply loved touching kids’ hearts and helping them find glory and majesty in music. The sheer joy and rapture on his face when a song “clicked” with his students was wonderful to behold. He touched more lives directly and profoundly in his 30 years as a teacher than perhaps anyone else in the history of the towns that feed into that high school. Other than my father, he probably is the one teacher who has been the greatest inspirational example in my life.

His and his wife’s story is told in the September, 2002 Ensign – (”In a Quiet House”). It illustrates Dave and Maria Elena amazingly well. What it doesn’t mention is that Mr. D served as a Bishop and as a Stake President during some of the time (the last few years) the story details. Their story will break your heart and fill your soul.

Please read it now at the link above. (This post will still be here when you are done. Really, go ahead and read it before moving on here. Don’t keep reading this; read it first.)

As difficult as it is to understand and accept experiences like these, I am inspired by our ability to rise above anything that happens in our lives by holding fast to a faith – any faith – that allows us to see the good even in the trials that break our hearts. Stephen is an inspiration to me. As he said so eloquently elsewhere, “All we can hope for is for God to bring us home.” I am grateful for that faith and that hope – and I pray that I will not have to learn the lessons my friend and Mr. D learned in the same way they did as God works to bring me home. 

(Please pardon a personal request: Mr.D retired a few years ago, and a scholarship fund was established in his name to help an exceptional student each year who sings at Payson High School pursue his or her college career. If you know of anyone who can read his story and bring this fund to a greater audience – or bring it to someone who can endow it to provide a regular scholarship off of the interest, I will be eternally grateful.)