A little history fun

Our daughter came to my husband and I last night wanting us to help her study for her history test.  It was mostly on the Reformation.  As she was trying to get the main events straight, I told her, "everything was about religion and power and keeping that power."  She said, "the Catholic Church sent out more missionaries," I said "yes, they were so concerned about everyone's salvation," with a smile on my face.  She turned to me and said, "they sent missionaries out to get more money," I said, "oh, that sounds familiar," my smile now turning into a chuckle, guess who's been listening to her mom and dad talk?  As we continued to go through the history, the parallels became fascinating! So let's have a little fun with history:

The Inquisition likened to The Mormon Reformation and The Strengthening the Members Committee

The Inquisition began as a legal way to contend with heretics. You know, those who spoke out about the Catholic Church wielding its controlling power over the helpless and innocent.  Its name comes from the Latin root word inquiro, which means, "to look into".  The inquisitors, those "looking into stuff" were accountable to only the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, the earthly representative of God!   They exacted penalties, tortured, and killed, those who objected to or threatened the power of the Church, you know, only stuff that God would do if He were on the earth.  The direct result of the Inquisition was increased influence and power for the church and need I say, an increase in wealth.  The two things, power and wealth, that God hungers after and that man is able to handle so well.  I think I have that right.  Yeah, that's right; and it was kind of a big, maybe biggest, violation of human rights in history, but there was the Holocaust, so... it's a toss up.  

Okay, now let's compare the Inquisition to the Mormon Reformation.   Why the puzzled look?  Surely you've heard of the Mormon Reformation.  Remember... we studied that in Seminary, at the same time that we studied the Meadow Mountains Massacre.  No?  I guess you're right, we didn't study those did we? I was in my forties in college before I ever heard of the Meadow Mountains Massacre.  I just learned about the Mormon Reformation this year. It took place in 1856 and 1857. It was under the direction of President Brigham Young, our earthly representative of God, kind of like a Mormon Pope, the prophet, seer and revelator that speaks directly to God to get His will concerning His church.  Those overseeing the reformation, Young's counselors, were only accountable to him.  Though on a tiny, tinier scale then the Inquisition, there are similarities.  Like only being accountable to the head of the church, and wielding complete authority.   

The Mormon Reformation began with President Young's desire to increase spirituality within the church. He was unhappy with the worldliness of the saints, as they began to build up their own personal wealth.  The reformation began by strict rules being enforced over the congregants through intimidation, home surveillance through a new home missionary program, and preaching the need for repentance and change from the pulpit at General Conference and other meetings.  Young's two counselors, Heber C. Kimball and Jedediah Grant, went throughout the entire Utah Territory, encouraging members to reject sin and embrace all things spiritual.  

Polygamy had been secretly practiced for years by the leadership of the Church, but in 1852, Brigham Young announced it as a church practice and doctrine. Thus, opening it up as a possibility to everyone. It was taught that polygamy was a more righteous way to live, in fact there are plenty of quotes from Brigham Young and others proclaiming it necessary to receive exaltation. When you have that bizarre of a marriage arrangement going on, you are just asking for trouble when it comes to sexual conduct.  A monkey wrench was thrown into their entire moral culture, and as a result, men began marrying younger and younger girls, 13 and 14 years old was not uncommon.  Adultery and fornication must have been seen as a problem, at least in the eyes of Apostle Parley P Pratt, who in 1855 asked the legislature to assign the death penalty for such behavior.  In 1857 Heber C. Kimball spoke about adultery within the church and said that, those doing so, were "worthy of death, and they will get it."  

Mormon's during that time, never really lived the Word of Wisdom like we do today.  Many drank coffee, tea, and beer and smoked or chewed tobacco, Church leaders included.  There are numerous journal entries and other records that provide enough evidence that it's not really debatable that the Word of Wisdom was just that, words. Leonard Arrington, church historian, said that the current attitude we have now about these substances, began in 1867.   

By September 1856, the Utah Territory, had been suffering from a draught, there were increasingly more immigrants coming from Europe across the Great Plains.  The economy was a mess and people were suffering.  Mormon's really believed at that time, including their leaders, that they were on the brink of the Second Coming.  As this call for greater spirituality continued, almost everyone was rebaptized.  The prophet was preparing everyone to live "celestial law" in Utah.  He is quoted as saying:  "The time is coming when justice will be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet; when we shall take the old broadsword and ask, Are you for God?  And if you are not heartily on the Lord's side, you will be hewn down."  If you think that his choice of words, "hewn down" is a bit dramatic, then you haven't heard of his doctrine of Blood Atonement. He was not kidding around when he used phrases like that.  To enforce this new "spirituality" among the saints, there were secret committees set up called "destroying angels" or Danites. There's an account of one group of people who left the Church during this time period being murdered, though probably sanctioned on a local level. 

During October Conference 1856, 2nd Counselor Grant, called several presidents of the Seventy by name and accused them of adultery among other things, and he urged President Young to "cut them off and prune the trees around him".  Home missionaries were assigned to ward families from their local teachers quorum, these were men in those days not 14 to 16 year old boys as they are now, to check on their physical needs and their spiritual progress; they were to report back to Church leaders regarding this.  This reform was the genesis of home teaching.  It just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that the home teaching program began as a home spying program, doesn't it?  Sorry, I don't mean to criticize  home teaching, it's a helpful service to many single mothers and widows, among others, today.

And hey, how about that Strengthening the Members Committee? You haven't heard about that either?  I know, I'd never heard of the fairly secretive committee either, until I saw Elder Holland asked about it in a BBC interview by Michael Sweeney.  (Can I just digress for one moment here to formally thank Elder Holland, if he had never agreed to interviews, I would have never known about this committee, or the fact that we don't know how we got the doctrine for the priesthood ban on the blacks, even though we were always taught it was a revelation from God, and I would have never known that the reasons for the ban are now referred to as "folklore" by our leaders.  Maybe Elder Holland really is doing God's work, because without his interviews how would we ever learn these things!)  Anyway, when Mr. Sweeney asked Elder Holland about the committee, Elder Holland acknowledged that it did and does still exist, ..."to protect against predatory practices of polygamists."  Sweeney asked, "It's there to defend the church against polygamists?"  "...that is still its principal task," answered Holland. When asked its subsidiary task, Holland said..."to be protective generally, just to watch and care for... any, err, insidious influence."   There appears to be two members of the Twelve Apostles on the committee, that reports directly to the First Presidency.  A spokesman for the church, Don LaFevre, said the committee "receives complaints from church members about other church members who have made statements that 'conceivably could do harm to the church', then the committee will pass the information along to the person's ecclesiastical leader."  Kind of sounds like the Nazi Germany's snitch system.  Problem is, nobody knows about the committee, so if you saw something you thought could be harmful to the church, you would have no idea that this committee exists, so how does that work?  Elder Oaks in 1993, described the committee as a "clipping service."  Well that about sums everything up; nothing more needs to be explained there.  Except, what the heck is a "clipping service?"   I looked it up, it's someone who cuts out coupons for you.  That's nice! They used to spy on members and now they are giving them coupons.  No... wait.  It's not coupons after all, it's speeches, writings and activities of those suspected of apostasy, that's what's clipped and passed on to church officials.  Isn't that a nice, harmless little committee, paid for by your tithing dollars no doubt. What happened to free agency, and turning the other cheek, and loving your neighbor and charity and all of that stuff? I wander if the disclosure of this committee is part of the missionary discussions? 

Martin Luther likened to The September Six

The Protestants have their hero, and we have ours too.  On Halloween day, three years from now, it will be the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg.  His criticisms threatened the power of the Pope and the Catholic Church, causing his excommunication. Luther was a scholar who had studied Aristotle at the University of Efurt.  We have our scholars too, they also threatened the Church's power and were excommunicated. These church's have no sense of humor when it comes to their power, let's just say they are very protective of it, and your loss of salvation does not cause them to loose any sleep, if you threaten their power in any way. 

The September Six, who are they?  They were a group of prominent LDS Scholars that were excommunicated, one disfellowshipped, in September of 1993. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, that did an article on them 20 years later, they were "writers that were rebuked."  D. Michael Quinn, a historian and one of the Six said, ...The tragic reality is that there have been occasions when Church leaders, teachers, and writers have not told the truth they knew about difficulties of the Mormon past, but have offered to the Saints instead a mixture of platitudes, half-truths, omissions, and plausible denials... A so called "faith promoting" Church history which conceals controversies and difficulties of the Mormon past actually undermines the faith of the Latter-day Saints who eventually learn about the problems from other sources..."  This statement made back in 1981 by D. Michael Quinn is more prophetic then anything I have heard from any of our prophets from that time until the present.  This is literally happening on a daily basis now and people are leaving in droves. 

The German and English Bible likened to the Internet

This is such a fun comparison!  Control the message, control the masses.  That bears repeating, so one more time, control the message, control the masses.  Loose control of the message and... well bad things happen, like the Reformation or the Google apostasy.  Bad things to the institution that is, the people might say differently. We all know the effects of getting the bible into the hands of the people in a language they could read, right?  They were no longer reliant upon the institution to hand pick what they heard, and interpret it for them.  The people could read it all for themselves and decide. That's exactly what is going on right now in the Mormon Church.  The Church used to have control of the history, and the way it was presented to its members, and unless you were very curious and happened to have a key to the First Presidency vault, so you could view all the primary sources that contradict the white washed history, you would never know.  But there were a few people who did get a "key" and their information has been recorded; remember D. Michael Quinn, one of the September Six, he's one of the people who had this "key".  That was several decades ago, who knew right?  Well some people knew, but they were few and far between, and you still had to be looking and know where to look for that information.  Most Mormons are not curious, not because we are ignorant, we are actually a highly educated people.  BUT, we are not curious, because we have been taught to not be curious! Not in those words exactly, the Church leaders don't put a swinging pocket watch in front of our faces, telling us...you are now getting sleepy, very very sleepy,  then tell us...don't be curious.   They just tell us that, anything that doesn't come from them is anti-Mormon and we should never look at that.  We don't want to be anti-Mormon and fall into a trap that might take away our testimony, thus our salvation, so we are not curious, super not curious.  Why would we be, for the most part, Mormons are very happy people, they have nice families and who wants to do anything that would tear at the root of all of that?  No thanks, we'll just pass on that, wouldn't you?   So even though this information was out there, it didn't look to be a problem for the Church.  All was well in Zion; but as you know, all good things come to an end, and Google was that end. 

There is so much information on the internet, good information, that is backed up by primary sources, double, triple backed up by primary sources, often the sources are the church's own publications from years past, or quotes from their own leaders, or doctrines that were once taught that have quietly disappeared with no explanation, like blood atonement.  It's so prolific and well documented, that if you happen to trip across it on the internet, well... Google apostasy.  What more can I say? 

Jesuits likened to 18 year old missionaries

The Jesuits played a very important role in the Counter-Reformation, when the Catholic Church tried to stop the bleeding from people joining with the Protestants.  The Jesuits were organized and committed, and were all in all a very impressive group of people, that did many good things. The Mormon Church has a missionary program that is also made up of a group of impressive people,  very organized, and very obedient.  About three years ago, desperate measures must have been needed, to stop the bleeding from the Google apostasy.  That's when President Monson made  the announcement that boys could now serve when they are 18, previously it has been 19, and girls can serve at 19, previously it was 21.  The Church anticipated that the announcement would significantly increase the number of missionaries, and it did. Unfortunately for the Church, the number of baptisms has not increased at the same rate as the increase of missionaries. So like the Jesuits, the increase in missionaries may help the bleeding, but like the Jesuits, who were not effective in stopping the Protestants, I'm afraid they will have little impact on the Google apostasy. 

Henry the VIII likened to Denver Snuffer

Here's another fun one.  Sometimes things just come out of left field.  Who would have ever thought that a King, Henry the VIII, would get it in his head to break away from the only church in the land and start his own church, which he would be the head of.  Kings are so busy anyway: feasts to attend, people to behead, countries to ravish, women to ravish, oh...I'm getting ahead of the story.  Well anyway, you get the idea, they are busy, busy, busy.  So why in heaven's name, pardon the pun, would you want to add, Popeship to your itinerary? Well it's just the oldest story in the book... pure love.  To get the woman of his dreams he would do anything!  Now image the shock and loss this was to the Papacy, the timing could not be worse.  Just when the Catholics thought those awful Protestants were causing havoc, image loosing an entire empire!  And the blasphemy of that wretched king proclaiming himself supreme head of the church of England. 

Now things are not looking great for the Mormon church either.  They're loosing members in bigger numbers then they'll admit to.  They tried to head off their plummeting numbers by pulling out the stops with their missionaries, lowering the age requirement, thus bringing in the biggest number of missionaries the Church has ever seen. Only to see their baptism rate increase by a mere four percent.  Enter, Denver Snuffer, forty year convert to the Church, who had been doing a lot of reading... a lot!  He read the scriptures, he read Church history, he started comparing the two, he came to conclusions that the Church was off track.  He wrote books about it, he blogged about it, he gained followers, he held seminars, he got excommunicated, his followers still follow him, they are leaving the Church, and being rebaptized.  Now, Denver is no King of England, and he didn't start a new movement over the love of a woman, but it was passion that moved him, passion for a gospel of Christ that he saw being usurped by men who are not receiving revelation from Christ, in his opinion.  And his followers hardly amount to a number to be noticed yet, but he's just in the beginning stages of his reform, so that remains to be seen.

The Council of Trent likened to the new Church Essays

Well, now we have come full circle.  Just like the Catholic Church, when they were first threatened by the Protestant movement, they tried to use force and hold firm to their doctrine and ways of doing things; and just like any other threatened institution when they discovered that they couldn't beat them, they decided to join them, to a small degree anyway.  The Council of Trent lasted for 18 years, but finally in the end, the Catholic Church did clean up some of its corruption, defined its doctrine, and made enough changes that it was able to carry on as an institution in a positive way.  The Mormon church is following suit.  It's leaders tried to clamp down, tighten their hold by excommunicating high profile dissenters, until that back fired on them, because of bad publicity.  They still are very active in excommunicating folks, but there are some that are just too high profile right now, that they have backed down from their threats of excommunication.  But if you're not well known enough to make too big of a media splash, watch out.  The Church essays appear to be an attempt to come clean about some of the sugarcoated history that its been doling out for generations.  Just as the Catholic Church had to admit in its reforms at the Council of Trent, that they had become corrupt in some areas, the Mormon Church is having to admit that they have been less than truthful and have not been forthcoming about its imperfections, which is many, and have had to admit that some of its doctrine was wrong and some of their scripture is not a translation from an ancient record, and that their founder may have not been exactly the near flawless person that they promote.  But you have to really read between the lines to find that.  They do protect his and their image to the best of their ability.  Remember their authority and divine commission, is directly related to Joseph Smith's commission being divine. 

So there you have it, a little history fun! Everything old is new again. 

   





 

Family funeral

Yesterday I went to my husband's Aunt Helen's funeral.  Helen lived to be 93 years old.  She was the only girl of nine children; she was the second oldest child, and my father-in-law is just younger than her.  They lived in a two bedroom farmhouse.  Helen got one bedroom and the parents got the other.  The eight boys had to sleep on the screened in front porch, summer, winter, spring and fall. To get to the only bathroom in the house, the boys had to go through Helen's bedroom. As my father-in-law told this story, I had visions of this poor girl never getting any sleep with eight brothers tromping through her room all night long.

Helen was raised LDS, her mother's side goes back into early pioneer stock and her father's side came from converts in Norway in the mid 1860's.  Helen married a nonmember and never attended the Church in her adults years, nor did several of her brothers; but her other brothers were active all their lives, including my father-in-law, who served as a bishop, in a stake presidency, and as a stake patriarch. 

It was a simple funeral, held at the funeral home. Helen has two daughters who asked my father-in-law to conduct and be in charge of the funeral program, which he has done many times because of the positions he has held. Dad, my father-in-law, is a kind gracious person who did a wonderful job.  Although, he did tell a story about Helen that she asked him not to tell... but brothers will be brothers, apparently even at your funeral!  But beside the story, of Helen throwing a pair of scissors at dad, which apparently landed in his thigh, he gave a beautiful account of her life and the kind of person she was.  Dad said that Helen is in heaven now with her mother and father, and her husband.  Very nice, nothing preachy and nothing that would be any different from a typical Christian funeral service. 

Then Helen's younger brother spoke.  He started out by saying he had been assigned to do the spiritual talk for the funeral.  He then rattled off the basic points of the "plan of salvation" including the war in heaven, the need for free agency, Satan's plan, our premortal life, why we are here, where we are going, etc.  He ended with leaving his testimony that all the things that he talked about were true.  As he spoke, I had so many thoughts go through my head. And my analysis is not meant to be a criticism of him, just an observation.

To begin with, the daughters are not members of the Church, and like I said, Helen hadn't gone her entire adult life.  So, for about 75 years, she had not attended the Mormon church; but somehow she got a Mormon funeral, even in the funeral home!  The most striking thing about this whole thing to me was the way the Church usurps the family.  This Church, that proclaims family is at the foundation of it's doctrine, comes in time after time and usurps the family, always placing itself before the family; or I should say we willingly put it before the family, thinking that putting the Church first is putting the family first.  But it's not, it's putting the Church first, at the expense of the family, relationship's, and people's feelings.  Take her younger brother's first remark, "I've been assigned to talk..". who talks like that?  Someone who has lost sight that he is actually speaking at his sister's funeral.  He forgot she has daughters that are not members, and they most likely had no idea about, nor cared about his, "plan of salvation".   Who says, "they have been assigned" at their sister's funeral?  Only someone who has let the protocol of the Church overtake their thinking, and they can't even relax at a service for their sister, and just talk about her, without having to hold a church meeting and do things the way the church instructs.  Namely assigning people to talk.  So when my father-in-law, asked him to speak at the funeral, he was incapable of seeing it as a brother asking another brother to speak at their sister's funeral.  He saw it as a Church assignment and proceeded to carry it out as one, all the time missing the fact that this was his sister's funeral and all that was needed was a personal remark from her brother.  She didn't need him to use her funeral as an opportunity to "spread the gospel" to a room of trapped people who were going to listen to the Mormon plan of salvation, whether they wanted to or not.  I just kept thinking how insensitive we are as members' of the Church, that we can't see two daughters that are at their mother's funeral and the last thing they probably wanted was a sermon on a belief system that they do not believe in. 

But people are for the most part gracious, and the daughters didn't say anything, they might not have even minded.  But why take the chance?  It's just not necessary to spread our beliefs around at every opportunity.  Especially at someone's mother's funeral.  I'm sure that all the members in attendance there thought it was just wonderful, and I'm sure for all the others in attendance, the message fell on deaf ears.

This is not the younger brother's fault.  He has been trained from his youth, to honor his Priesthood.  And sharing the gospel is an extension of that.  And if there is an opportunity to do that, it will be foremost in a priesthood holder's mind.  He thinks he's just doing what Jesus wants him to.  And doing what Jesus wants us to is a powerful thing!  So powerful, that we do things for him that he never asked us to, and we do all kinds of things in his name, that he never did. Mormons are certainly not the only ones guilty of that. 

A Child of God

Sunday morning I listened to Shawn McCraney (of Born again Mormon fame) talk about being, a child of God.  Then at church, the Sacramento temple president spoke and he too talked about, being a child of God.  They both had different takes on it, I wonder if they could both be right?

Shawn told of his "born again" experience; he was listening to a preacher on the radio while driving to pick his daughters up. The preacher asked, "if you can make yourself righteous why haven't you done so"?  On his mission he had tried, through his callings he had tried, through strict obedience he had tried, by talking with his bishop he had tried.  Then the preacher said, "the reason that you haven't made yourself perfect and presentable before God is because you can't."  This made sense to Shawn because he thought, no matter what I do, what rites I perform, or how I dress, or clean shaven, nothing was going to change the inside of me, because I can't do it on my own.  The message from this preacher was that it was Jesus and His life and His righteousness and atonement, His suffering, and by having Him in your life you become a new person.  He pulled over and prayed to Heavenly Father, telling Him that he was a sinful man, and "I can't get over myself no matter what I have tried.  Will you forgive me of my sins through Jesus Christ.  Jesus will you come into my heart and take over my life from this time forward, I will do anything if you will do this.  I'll wait for you to do it." 

The temple president in his talk explained that there is a big difference between being a child of God as opposed to being a creation of God.  He said, when we are baptized our sins are washed away and the Holy Ghost is the companion to those who are faithful to their covenants and will have inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom. Without the ordinances there is no power of Celestial Glory.  Baptism and the Holy Ghost are the gateway to that.  There are three levels and the highest is exaltation.  Our ordinances lead to living the kind of life God lives.  The love of God is to return to him and live in his presence. 

Could they both be right?

I get what Shawn McCraney is saying, and I completely agree with him.  He's talking about a born again experience; and if you have never had that experience you don't know what he's talking about and if you have you know exactly that he's talking about.  Oh, let me finish explaining to you what he said.  He said he was willing to wait on Jesus in his prayer.  And when he finished his prayer, he hoped he would be a changed person, but he wasn't.  When he got to the gym, he was early, so while he waited, he remembered four instances in his life when people had testified to him about Jesus and his love.  By the time his daughters reached the car, he had a new heart.  I believe him, I have experienced this change of heart too.  It completely changes your thinking, you become a new creature in Christ.  Your nature has been changed.  Some may wonder how it comes so quickly, in reality it wasn't quick, it had been a lifetime of preparation, and when Shawn had suffered enough, and humbled himself and went to the right source, which is God, he was born again!   

Had the temple president experienced that? Probably not, he most likely would have talked a bit differently, not relied so heavily on the ordinances, talked more about Christ like he knew Him, and may have had a personal story to tell, like Shawn.  I know Shawn's story is true, it's a story of someone who is humble and confesses his sins to God and acknowledges that he needs Him, he tried but he can't change who he is on his own.  It's a beautiful story of how the Savior changed him,  And I agree with all of that. If you don't humble yourself before God and really give everything to Him, and know that you are nothing, you will never have this experience. And Mormon's do miss this a lot.  They have the tools to take them there, but seldom use them to get to Christ.  They get so caught up in the "tools" that they don't use them to find out what Christ can do, how He really can change them, really and truly be born again.  But it's a journey and no one is finished with their journey yet, even in the next world.  I don't think God worries about this, He knows this and allows us to grow at our own pace, learning as we go.  He is a very loving father and very understanding and patient.     

So, what was the temple president saying?  He said there was a big difference between being a creation of God and a child of God.   I agree with that.  A child of God is someone who has been born again.  He said when we are baptized our sins are washed away and the Holy Ghost is the companion of those who are faithful to their covenants.  Baptism is symbolic of a new creature that emerges when you are born again and Christ has saved you.  Saved you from what?  It's a good question.  Saved comes from the Greek word "sodzo" which means to be keep safe, to save a suffering one.  Could it be that Christ keeps you safe in His watchful care, in His kingdom, while he saves you from suffering for your sins?  That Christ on the cross, through his infinite atonement, by turning to Him and trusting in his ability to change you, clean you up, transform you into a new creature, saves you from having to suffer for your sins.  He did that for you, you don't have to suffer for your sins to pay the price of justice.  Justice is served through Christ.  That's His love for us, that's his gift.  We can live this life and learn as we go without being held to the justice that would require us to suffer for our sins.  If we don't accept His offer, we will suffer, not as a punishment per se but as a school teacher.  Our suffering becomes the school teacher.  We already live that principle, maybe not knowingly, but we do live it.  We either learn through our suffering, and change, or we continue to suffer.  If you give that some careful thought you will know that it's true. 

The temple president also said, without the ordinances, there is no power of Celestial Glory.  It can easily be argued, from the scriptures, that there is more than one heaven or at least levels to heaven.  From a Mormon's point of view, the Celestial Glory is the highest heaven or level of heaven.  I believe what he's saying is, that it's necessary to be faithful to the covenants that you make to be able to go to the Celestial Glory. Again, where I think most Mormon's miss the mark, is that they fall in love with the covenants and forget that they are tools.  They are not the saving device, they are a reminder of the saving device, which is Christ.  But Mormon's are a lot like the Jews at the time of Christ, they loved their law and forgot that it was a tool, not salvation in and of itself.  I believe that's why the temple president, loves the ordinances, believes in them, and hopes in them, but doesn't have a personal story to tell about how they led him to Christ, to be born again, because I think he's still on that journey.  Which by the way, I might add, he has every right to still be on that journey, as God patiently waits for him to figure it out. 

I take issue with that. 

Now, I do have to take issue with the mission president.  He says, "our ordinances lead to living the kind of life that God lives".  Well that's true, BUT only if we find Christ; and that's the problem, that's why Shawn McCraney was so miserable!  He kept thinking that living his ordinances were going to make him Christ like.  Which they don't do, unless we can gain ears to hear and eyes to see and learn that these ordinances are nothing in and of themselves, they are only symbolic and the real path to Christ is through humility, a broken heart and a contrite spirit.  The problem with ordinances today, is the same problem with ordinances in the past, living them requires a little sacrifice, so it's easy to think that your little sacrifice has value, and it's easy to become prideful of your sacrifice and the ordinances take over as your salvation.  Because in reality living those ordinances is easier then humbling yourself and finding Christ, so instead we fall in love with the ordinances.

Again, can they both be right?

Can they both be right?  I think so.  I think they both tell of paths they have traveled. One has a born again story to tell and the other has the hope of a born again story to tell, he just doesn't fully understand that yet. And I think God is very patient with us on our path.  Anyone that says, "I have the exact way", or "your Christ is a different Christ then the one in the Bible", I just reject that outright.  Who gave them the right to define that?  And who has the right to say, "our church is the only way, our ordinances are what you need to be saved."  But if you have found love and peace, and a tolerance for your fellowman, and are able to grasp the good in them and learn from others, then you are probably on the right path.  And may your life be filled with peace and love.

Someone is Lying

Since I haven't done so yet, let me explain how my faith crisis came about... someone was lying. Not just anyone mind you, an Apostle of the Lord!  A little over a year ago, I was preparing a lesson for my YW class.  I was searching on the internet, when I came across a PBS interview with Elder Holland.  I couldn't believe what I was reading! The interviewer asked him about the priesthood ban on the blacks, here's the question he asked Elder Holland:

I've talked to many blacks and many whites as well about the lingering folklore [about why blacks couldn't have the priesthood]. These are faithful Mormons who are delighted about this revelation, and yet who feel something more should be said about the folklore and even possibly about the mysterious reasons for the ban itself, which was not a revelation; it was a practice. So if you could, briefly address the concerns Mormons have about this folklore and what should be done.

Let me explain at this point, I was a completely devout Mormon, married in the temple, raised our family in the church. I never questioned anything about the church.  So when I read this question, the first thing that seems odd to me, is the use of the word "folklore", I had never heard that word used to describe any of our doctrine, "folklore" why was this interviewer calling our doctrine "folklore"?

This was Elder Holland's response:

One clear-cut position is that the folklore must never be perpetuated. ...

What?  Why was Elder Holland expounding on the word "folklore"?  Why didn't he refute it by saying, this was not folklore, this was a revelation from God.  I had been taught my entire life that the ban on the blacks was a revelation from God and that the reason for the ban was that black people were from the lineage of Cain and that curse was placed on them because of Cain killing Abel.  These people were less valiant in the pre-existence, therefore they came to earth through that lineage.  Elder Holland went on to say:

I have to concede to my earlier colleagues. ... They, I'm sure, in their own way, were doing the best they knew to give shape to [the policy], to give context for it, to give even history to it. All I can say is however well intended the explanations were, I think almost all of them were inadequate and/or wrong. ...
It probably would have been advantageous to say nothing, to say we just don't know, and, [as] with many religious matters, whatever was being done was done on the basis of faith at that time. But some explanations were given and had been given for a lot of years. ... At the very least, there should be no effort to perpetuate those efforts to explain why that doctrine existed. I think, to the extent that I know anything about it, as one of the newer and younger ones to come along, ... we simply do not know why that practice, that policy, that doctrine was in place.

Now my mouth is hanging open!  Did he just say ... we simply do not know why that practice, that policy, that doctrine was in place. 

What is he talking about?  First of all he is an Apostle, so how can he not know how a doctrine came about?  AND, I thought our doctrine came from God.  How could he say he doesn't know?  I thought ALL our doctrine came from God.  That's what I had been taught my entire life.  And by the way, this is not some insignificant doctrine!  This is huge, racist, life altering, life denigrating doctrine.  It attacks the character of all black people.

At this point I get up to find my husband. I read him what Elder Holland said in the interview.  I ask him, did you know that an Apostle could claim to not know where our doctrine comes from?  He was as shocked as I was.  Then I hear my self say, "Elder Holland is lying."  He has to be, there are only two choices, either he's the dumbest member of the church I have ever run across to say he doesn't know where that doctrine came from, or he's lying.  All of his squirming around and saying as, one of the newer and younger ones to come along... blah blah blah, have you ever had a child lie to you?  You can see right through it, and I could see right through his lies. 

Next, I began to see a pattern of lies.  Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, had one thing in common... many wives.  They even had some of the same wives in common.  Brigham married several of Josephs wives after Joseph was killed.  But with all of this in common they couldn't get their story straight... one of them is lying.  Joseph said in his 1844 Testimony Against the Dissenters at Nauvoo, "What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one.  I am the same man and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers."  In an 1838  Elder's Journal, Joseph answered the Question: Do Mormons believe in having more wives than one?  The answer,  No, not at the same time.  But they believe that if their companion dies, they have a right to marry again..."  

So here we have Joseph Smith saying he only has one wife and that Mormons believe in only one wife at a time, monogamy in other words.  Yet the Church says he was a polygamist; they show his multiple wives on their family search website, and they have D&C 132 in their canon of scriptures that clearly states the acceptance of polygamy and the rules for it.  So again, someone is lying!

Brigham was a big polygamist, we all know that.  He taught about polygamy numerous times in his sermons, these quotes, among many others, can be found in the Journal of Discourses: 

      Brother Cannon remarked that people wondered how many wives and children I had.  He may inform them that I shall have wives and children by the millions, and glory, and riches, and power, and dominion, and Kingdom after Kingdom, and reign triumphantly.
    
     Talk about polygamy! There is no true philosopher on the face of the earth but what will admit that such a system, properly carried out according to the order of heaven, is far superior to monogamy for the raising of healthy, robust children!

And these are just a few of Brigham's quotes found in the Deseret News:
    
     Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned; and I will go still further, and say that this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord had given, and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned.
    
     Why do we believe in and practice polygamy?  Because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord's servants have always practiced it. And is that religion popular in heaven?  It is the only popular religion there...

Then we have a recent prophet, President Hinckley, comment on polygamy in a Larry King interview.   When asked if he condemns it, President Hinckley said:

      I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. 

Again, I hate to keep repeating myself, but someone is lying!! Either it's not doctrinal as President Hinckley says, or you're going to be damned if you deny it, as Brigham Young said,  Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned..

President Hinckley, in the same interview, said "When our people came west they permitted it on a restricted scale... The figures that I have are from--between two and five percent of our people were involved in it.   The Church's own essay on plural marriage states, that the "practice of plural marriage was instituted among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the early 1840's. Well, that's before they came west. The essay also states that:  "Probably half of those living in Utah Territory in 1857 experienced life in a polygamous family as a husband, wife, or child at some time during their lives."  That's just ten years after they came west. If half of the people would be involved in polygamy as a family member sometime in their life, then it was on a much larger scale then "two to five percent," as President Hinckley said. Then to illustrate how the number diminished, the essay says: "By 1870, 25 to 30 percent of the population lived in polygamous households, and it appears the percentage continued to decrease over the next 20 years." Again, do I need to say it?  Someone is lying.  And I'm not going to couch it in terms like, "well his facts may not have been accurate, or he didn't know".  Sorry, if you are going to go before the world and proclaim yourself the Prophet of the world, Christ's mouthpiece on the earth, then you have no excuse for bad data, you are the Prophet. Sorry, either you're lying or the essay is. That's just how life is, to coin a phrase from President Hinckley, I still believe in, "right is right and wrong is wrong."  I was taught by this church that any intent to deceive is a lie, and I'm holding our leaders to that standard.







   

Conversation with a gay return missionary, part 3

Part 3, a continuation of my conversation with a friend.  (my questions/comments are in red, his answers are in green)



Maybe you have answered this in other questions, but have you found peace and healing and if so how?

When I stopped fighting who I knew that I was, and who I am, that's when I found ultimate peace.  I didn't have to worry anymore that I was sinning or that other people were looking at me differently, or I would have to go see my Bishop next week, or not be able to take the sacrament.  Or not having to feel the fear of, okay I didn't take the sacrament, who's looking at me, what are they thinking of me?  When I let all of those barriers and fears of inadequacy completely go, and I could just fully embrace life and the freedom to be me, that's when I found the most happiness.  Because when I was going to church, I was always afraid of being judged, even though as members we are taught not to judge.  But I was guilty of the same thing,  I looked around to see who wasn't taking the sacrament, and thinking, I wonder what they did?  One thing that I really hated was sitting in the congregation and thinking that the Bishop was starring at me because I had just met with him the week before.  And I always felt in the back of my head that he always thought about what I had done.  I always had that fear of, what was he thinking?  They always said that a Bishop is so loving and caring, and they are, don't get me wrong, but why did it make me feel so inadequate, and so dirty, and so sinful?  That part I never understood.  I think a lot of it was based out of fear, okay I just took the sacrament and I wasn't worthy, what's going to happen to my salvation? Oh, I better go repent, I better go tell the Bishop, I  stole something, or I looked a pornography or I cheated on a test.  When I felt so badly and let someone else have that kind of power over me, that kind of influence over me, I wasn't able to just be, to be totally and completely free. 

Do you think it's ironic, that we allow these men to be in charge of our salvation?

It's so crazy for me to even fathom, that we go in and talk to a Bishop and they say, okay you struggle with this, I need to know more.  I don't get that.  Even when I was a member, I never did get that part.  I hope that answers your question, I think when I didn't limit myself to a certain religion, or certain congregation or a specific kind of person, it really opened my eyes to a lot of really incredible experiences.   For one, the friends that I have now, I could never image having allowed them to be in my life if I was still an active member of the church. 

 What advice would you have for others in a similar situation as you, especially return missionaries?

The first thing that comes to my mind is to not loose who you are, to not loose yourself, not to be overwhelmed.  I've been there and I have done that, and it was so overwhelming to be back in the world.  Give it time, don't be ashamed of who you are.  What I would advise, and easier said than done, because I've been there, I've been down that road, I've lived with the fear of what if somebody finds out that I'm gay?  How are people going to react and are they still going to be my friend when they find out that I'm gay.  Looking back it was a huge thing.  It was a big deal, it was like earth shattering to me, it really was.  I consumed it, it thought it, I breathed it, I ate it, I worried about it, I lost sleep over it, I made myself sick over it.  Umm... just to really give it time, to just be you, don't allow others to dictate your happiness and who you are and who you want to be, I just think that, life is too short to live the way others want you to live.  Embrace it, don't be afraid to be different, and if people do see you as different, that's okay.  Again, it's not the end of the world, but when I was in that situation is was my world, it was everything to me, and I thought it all come tumbling down and for a while it did, but I picked myself up and brushed myself off and I found my way.

What advice would you have for church leaders when they have a gay person come to them?

Yes, the word force should never be counsel that you give to a young man or woman that's having trouble with their sexuality.  I don't think that we should ever teach someone to force themselves to be someone they are not.  And I really felt that I was dirty and that I was less of a person, that I was a sinner, that I was making all these mistakes.   I really think that the church leaders need to understand that the counsel that they give or don't give is damaging.  It's killing a lot of youth, I know that in the last few years there were quite a few young men in the church that were struggling with coming out, that took their own lives, and I think that it comes back to the pressure that these church leaders are putting upon these men that are coming out.  There was so much pressure to keep that hidden, keep that quiet, it destroys the way you think about yourself, the way you see yourself, the way you live, it just takes everything out of you. It completely rips your soul from your body, it damaging.  And you know, I also think, when I was going through that, I wish they could have been more understanding, that they would have been more patient.  That they really would have been less afraid to say, you know this is wrong, Heavenly Father isn't happy with the choice that you are making.  I really think that at that age you are so vulnerable and you are already going through so much, that that should never be a part of the conversation, that you are not good enough, you need to go to the temple more often and read your scriptures, and you need to see the Stake President more often.  I think that church leader should teach that you should embrace yourself.  When they want to teach that we should be the exact same, and fit that cookie cutter mold, that's the issue.  I think the church, or any organization for that matter would function so much better if they allowed diversity, and they allowed other to think for themselves and not the way their church leader wants them to think.  I really think that's the issue. 

Do you think they understand that they are possibly dealing with life and death situations, and the way that they handle it could actually mean life or death to someone?

I look at myself, for years I was suicidal, I took antidepressants, I was in and out of doctors offices, I didn't want to live any more, I was depressed, I couldn't get out of bed.  It almost killed me, the judgment of others almost killed me, so I would agree with you that that is true, that these are life and death matters. 

Do you think they have any inkling that they are dealing with something like that?  When you were talking with your Bishop, do you think he understood that you might be in such a situation as that, and that the way he was handling it could effect whether you lived or not?

I think that part of the problem, is that they don't understand.  And I don't think they have taken the time to want to understand.  If it's not in the church manual, if it's not what the first presidency has come out with, then he can't teach it. 

It seems that all they can see is this big sin, and they have a hard time seeing past that.

They can't.  They can't see, here's an incredible young man, that is worthy to reach out for my help.  What am I going to do to help him?  Forget the church, forget the teachings, as a human being, what can I do to help this individual, to not kill himself or not be depressed?  Just humanity, what can I do to help save this person? 

What advice would you give to parents/families that find out they have a gay child?  By the way I think your family did a very good job.

I would agree and disagree, I would agree to the fact that they didn't kick me out of the family, they didn't disown me, they didn't say we can't love you as much.  They never approached it like that, and for that I'm so thankful, because I think that would have pushed me even further over the edge than I was at that point.  They were always very loving, very accepting. I always think back to my little sister, she was always so understanding.  She asked question after question after question, and wanted to know what I was thinking and how it made me feel and I remember her asking me, "well have you ever kissed a guy or held a guy's hand?" and I was like, no, and she said, "well how do you know your gay?" "Just go try it, you may find out you love it or you may hate it, then you will know."  That's advice that I will never forget, she was like, "just go try it, there's no harm in that."  "There's nothing wrong in wanting to explore the way that you feel."  She said, "that doesn't make you a bad person, I don't look at you any differently."  But I think that's the issue, I even have a good friend here in SLC.  She just came out to her parents, they are not religious, they are not anything, they completely disowned her, they said we will not associate with you, if you choose to live that way.  So I don't necessarily think its an LDS viewpoint of disowning you or we don't agree with that,  I just think as a society we don't know how to deal with it.  To be honest with you I think my version of homosexuality and being gay is probably different then some of my friends, I think there are different levels and different degrees of what homosexuality is.  And I think that I'm still trying to discover what I think it means to me.  Because I don't think that I understand it for myself still.  I know that it's something that I enjoy and it feels natural to me, but I'm not sure I understand, big picture, what it's going to mean for me down the road. 

That's an interesting point, because you mentioned that before, that you didn't exactly know what being gay meant to you.  I wouldn't think that you would still not have an understanding of it.  But that's interesting, just like any other person doesn't have an understanding of certain things right?

Yes, and to add to that, I think what I'm still trying to figure out is: I know that I'm gay, but for me to be completely happy being gay, do I need to be in a relationship and have kids?  That's what I'm trying to figure out for myself.  I know that I want kids, and I'd like to be a partner with one person and have kids, have a family. I know that's what I want, but I don't know if that's what's going to bring me the most happiness, later on down the road, that's what I'm trying to figure out, am I going to be a happy single gay man and just date, whatever, or do I really want kids and be committed and have that one person for the rest of my life.  I don't really know that I do.

So how are you going to figure that out?

Good question.  I think it's one of those things that I will have to experience and by trial and error just try to figure it out.  I remember it was so lonely and miserable when I was in Boise. All I wanted was the companionship of someone.  I wanted someone to be there and to love me, but now I think as I have matured, and I have grown, I think my viewpoint is much different now.  I don't think that I'm as dependent on someone else. I think I'm far more independent, then most people, I love my space, I like to be alone.  So I went from one extreme to the next.  I wanted to be with someone, I was depressed that I wasn't with someone, that no one liked me, that I couldn't find someone to be with, then, now that I've found someone, it's just kind of like, do I really want this, or do I want to be independent and single? 

Okay, those are just the same emotions as a straight person, right? 

As far as I know, I assume that's correct, I don't know. 

Those seem like pretty typical emotions that anyone could experience.

Yes, absolutely.

Here's my last question, this is what I'm beginning to wonder, perhaps God puts us down here in different categories, different races, different religions, different sexualities, we are all in these different groups in different ways. Do you think that He does that, so that we learn to look outside our group, to overcome prejudices and learn to love others?  Is that a possibility?

It's kind of an oxymoron, it's like the church teaches charity, which is the pure love of Christ, it's pretty safe to assume that most members are not okay about accepting diversity.  So it's interesting that you pose the question that way.  I absolutely one hundred percent agree that that is part of the "test".  I really do believe that that is part of the bigger picture, for all of us to be different, for all of us to look and see that diversity is okay.  That someone with tattoos or a nose ring or black or Russian, or someone that has maybe one arm or no legs, I really think that diversity was put here on this earth for us to learn to love each other. 












 

Conversation with a gay return missionary - Part two

Welcome to part two.  In this part we will cover his beliefs about salvation, good things that he believes comes from being a member of the church, harm that he believes comes from being a member of the church, and happiness and the church.  Please enjoy this second part of my conversation with a friend: 


Part Two:


What would you say to a mother or father that is Mormon, or born again Christian (because I think they would have a similar view point) who is worried about their gay child's salvation?

I would probably prefecit by saying it's not the end of the world, you may initially be afraid of what that means, what the term "I'm gay" or "I'm coming out" means because I think its different for everyone.  But I think over time they would come to love their child regardless. I think the initial reaction is that we live in a world where anyone that is different or stands out is not accepted.  And like for my own mom, when I told her that I was coming out, that I was gay, her reaction as well was that we live in a world that is so cruel, and my mom, even to this day worries about me, worries about my safety.  I don't necessarily know that she still worries about my salvation, but when it's all said and done, I know that the Lord understands where each of us is at in our lives, and I really think he takes into consideration, not only our intent, our pureness of heart, but how we treat other people. I don't necessarily think its going to be salvation based on being straight or gay or black or white, or Mormon or sinner, non denominational or Catholic.  I really think it going to depend on who we are as a person, as we ultimately leave this earth life, so yeah, I think my view point has changed in regard to salvation.  Before I thought you had to do certain things, where now I don't believe that is the case; because we are all given different opportunities and we have so many different circumstances. It's impossible that we can all be judged according to the same things. Yeah, I just believe that our salvation is worked out, whatever that means, I think it's probably different for every one, but I think ultimately its between us and the Lord and he will decide that in our own time, and that it's not something that I necessarily worry about myself, but I can see where it would be alarming for a parent that was a Mormon or Christian or Born Again, or whatever they classify themselves as.  I think because the Bible teaches us that it's a sin or the Mormon church teaches is that marriage is between a man and a woman and not a man and a man or woman and a woman, that it defeats the whole plan of salvation, I think that's the initial worry.  But I think of it so much different now. 



What about the fact that a lot of people think it's plain in the Bible that it's a sin?  Can you address that a little bit more?

Thinking back as myself as a missionary, and kind of using my missionary answer that I used back then, is that there are so many interpretations to the Bible, that it's so hard to distinguish what is a sin and what isn't a sin.  Even though it clearly states that it is a sin, I would just put back on them, "thou shalt not judge"  if that person is judging me, they are just as much at fault for being a sinner then I am, being attracted to a man.  I know it may not have the same degree, but I think that, and again my view point has changed so much, where I don't allow the viewpoint or the judgment of others to effect me to the point where I loose sleep or be worried about my salvation.  In that case, personally, it wouldn't have the same effect on me as when I was a member of the church. 

When you stopped going to church, was there ever times that you wanting to go running back, back to that doctrine?

Oh Yeah, I don't necessarily think I want to run back to the doctrine, but I think even to this day there are times that I want to run back to the comforts of the social aspects of the church, because it was so safe.  When I first moved to SLC, I didn't have that instant network, I didn't have the safety net of being able to go to a place where there were people my age with similar interests that I could instantly bond with.  So having said that, I had to start over, I had to find my own social network. I don't want to necessarily run back to the doctrine because that's not really what I think about, I think more of the social aspect of the church, that's most appealing to me so in that case you know there are still times when I think it would be so easy and I would have so many more friends, it would be such a safety net if I needed help or just needed someone to be there, I still often feel that and I don't necessarily know if that will ever leave.  Because I think it is such a safety net, its something so comforting that I had for so long, I think that's what's most appealing about the church.

Are you still a member?

I've never technically had my name removed from the records of the church or been excommunicated and I certainly know that if I went back I would be, but it's really interesting I never really felt that it was necessary or appropriate to allow another man or the church to have that kind of power over me, I never wanted to sign a piece of paper or have someone say to me, this is your last chance, you can go to church court or you can choose to refuse this or fight this, whatever they say.  I just never felt that my leaving the church should be on someone else's terms, I wanted it to be on my own terms.  So while I'm not practicing and haven't been for 6 years, I never felt that I needed to end it that quickly and abruptly, so I guess technically I still am a member, but in my head I'm not.

I'm going to ask you, off the top of your head, if you had to make a list of the harm that the church brings into peoples lives, if any, what would you say it is?

I think back to testimony meetings as a young kid, watching all those young kids stand up and say verbatim what their parents say, I think that is harmful, it doesn't allow kids in the church to think for themselves or to ever really question, so I think as they get older in the church that continues to evolve, I think it goes back to the conversation we had a few weeks ago of not being allowed to question someone's beliefs or a doctrine that is taught in church.  I would say that has to be on of the most harmful, it is in a way brainwashing, it's repetition, it's something that's taught at such a young age, it doesn't allow the freedom to think and to believe how you would choose when you're older.

I think second, the knowledge that we are the only true church, that if you are not baptized into the LDS church you're not going to be saved, I think that is very harmful.  Having served a mission and having taught that for two years, I still don't know if I necessarily believed that portion of what I was teaching, because I always felt in the back of my head that there's no way that that is true, because there are so many good people out there, and even now, my circle of friends is 99.9% non LDS and they are some of the best people, and they have never been LDS.  And I can fathom that they wouldn't be saved.

Three, and without going into too much depth, the temple ceremony was always very strange to me.  I remember very clearly when I went through for my own endowment before my mission, I remember leaning over to my dad and asking "is this our church?" It was so foreign to me, just so out there to me.  I don't know if that's damaging, but for me it raised a lot of questions even before my mission.

I look at a lot of members of the church and they are so judgmental, so closed mined in the way they perceive other people, and I did the same thing.   I remember teaching a lady that we baptized on my mission, and one of the baptismal questions we have to ask is:  Have you been involved in a homosexual relationship?  And she hesitated and was like, "yeah, I have an attraction to women and I have been in situations where I have been with another woman"  It was so funny to me,  that in the back of my own head, I thought to myself, well how can I tell her that that's wrong when I have felt the same thing almost my entire life.?  So that basic believe of judging other people and telling them that they are wrong when I know a lot of members probably struggle with the same thing just are afraid to admit it. 

I see a lot of pride in the LDS church.  I see a lot of pride in its members of them being better then everyone else. Those are probably the main things that come to my mind. 

If you had to list the good that comes from being a member of the church what would you say?

I would say the core value of family, the basic belief that the family is eternal.  Because I would certainly like to that I will be with my family forever, whatever that means and to whatever degree. That to me is probably the most important believe that I still hold true to is the concept of family, in that can still be with my family after this life is over, that's probably the most important thing that I still carry with me as far as values go.  

The word of wisdom, the law of health.  Just being honest in your dealings, I think having standards and morals and treating people with respect.  I think that that was always very well taught growing and to this day those are still core beliefs that I for the most part remember and hold true to.  

I think the level of commitment on any level that the members have is something to be admired.  Members of the church seem to be very wealthy and very successful, education has always been pushed.  And the sacrifice of all these young men and these couples that take18 months or two years out of their life's to leave home and learn a foreign language and to work with and be companions with someone that they have never met. I think that's something to be admired, just the sacrifice that the members of the church put in day in and day out.  I think that's very respectful.

Do you think the church is family oriented?  They say they are, and that's one of the things that you mentioned on your list of good that comes from the church.  Let me ask it another way, do you think the church is destructive to a family or is it family oriented?

Let me answer the first part of the question, do I think the church is family oriented?  I do believe that it is, but I don't necessarily believe that it's with a husband and a wife,  I believe it can be a family with a man and a man or a woman and a woman.  I don't necessarily think that the structure is so defined, like the church teaches.  I really do think a family can even be a single parent. I don't think a mother should be looked down upon  because she doesn't have a spouse.  I think my belief in what family means has changed, versus what I used to.  I used to think that as the church taught a family is a man and a woman and children. But now I don't know that I agree with that, nor do I believe that.  I believe that a family can be two people without any kids, it can be me and a single guy.  If that's my opportunity, then that's my family.

On the second part, yes I think it can be very destructive.  I think about the push for marriage at such a young age, is very destructive.  I believe that my mission president telling me that 6 months after completing my mission I should be married in the temple. Well, I think its very destructive, giving that pressure to young men and women when they are so young  and have not even experienced life, I think that is very harmful.  I think its also very harmful that fact that women are taught to be stay at home mom's and to not necessary get an education, but to raise children in the home.  I think there is a lot of pressure on mother's in the church to have kids at such a young age and to have many kids. I think Utah is one of the highest states for depression and I really think that's because of the pressure that the church puts on families to be so perfect, to be better than their neighbor or to have this and to have that, or to look a certain way or to be perceived a certain way.  I really think the pressure to be the perfect family is a huge flaw in the church. I also have known a lot of really young couples where the husband has struggled with pornography, I think that whole stigma of pornography, and sex outside of a healthy married relationship, can be very damaging,  I know its an evil thing and I'm not promoting it by any means, but I think the shame that a Bishop or Stake President can put on someone is damaging.

When you left the church is had nothing to do with the history of the church, or anything like that; but somewhere along the line you must have become acquainted with the problems with the history of the church, did you?

To be honest with you, that's something that I have never really gotten into, so I can't answer that either way.  And I don't necessarily know now that if I knew the history of the church if it would make me feel any different, because I am so far removed from the church, does that make sense?  I think that if I were still active and I studied those things it would have a huge sway in the way I felt or viewed the church, but that doesn't really matter to me, it just doesn't matter.  I left, not because of what I knew or didn't understand, but because of my orientation and the person that I was and them not accepting me as a person. 

I was talking with someone who told me they left the church unaware of the historical problems, but simply because it wasn't making them happy, would you say that is closer to your experience? 

Yeah, that reminds me of a time when I had first come out and I had just lost my job and I was wondering what I was going to do with my house and with work and my sister happened to be at my house, and I will never forget that she said, "you know, maybe if you started going back to church and living the commandments and seeing the Bishop, maybe you wouldn't be so unhappy, and maybe life would get better for you."  I still to this day can remember in my home, where I was, where she was standing, the look on her face, the tone that she used, what I was thinking at the time.  I love my sister to death, but I literally had to pick her up off the floor and set her outside my door step and say, "if you are going to treat me like that, you are not welcome in my home until you can treat me with equal respect, then you can come back." It's so funny that the importance, like you said, that we allow it to have on us being happy.  I know so many sincerely happy people that are not members of the church.  This is probably one of the happiest times in my life and I'm not a member of the church, I'm not reading the Book of Mormon, I'm not going out with the missionaries, or seeing my Bishop, or going to Sacrament meeting and bearing my testimony or attending Elder Quorum.  I'm not doing any of those things and honestly I'm so much happier, because even when I was doing those things, the guilt that I felt and the wanting to always be better, or thinking I read my scriptures for 30 minutes today, I should probably read them for an hour tomorrow.  There was always that "not good enough mentality" verses now I know that what I am doing is good enough.    


End of Part Two

We will wrap things up in Part Three

Conversation with a gay return missionary: Part One

This is an interview I had with my son's best friend from high school; he's a return missionary, gay, and living with his partner in SLC.  I think you will appreciate his sincerity, his struggle to live his religion, and the events that lead to his leaving it.  I hope you will grasp the internal struggle as he honestly recounts his experiences, and no matter how you feel about gay issues, especially Mormon gay issues, I think you will be touched and maybe surprised, at the depth of his commitment to his upbringing, but that holding to those beliefs were leading to feelings of suicide.  He'll tell us the advice that changed his life and allowed him to believe that being who he is was not a sin. This conversation is helpful to any Mormon to better understand the life of a gay member, and especially if you are dealing with this issue in your family.  I've known him more than 15 years, he was a delight to have around our house when he and my son were growing up.  I still find him very delightful and when I was done talking with him, I just had to tell him that I thought he was an intelligent, thoughtful, moral person.  I think you will agree. 

Here's Part One:


Returning home from your mission, what were your hopes, dreams, and desires?

At the completion of my mission, I had an interview with my Mission President, one thing he said to me was, Elder ______, you served an honorable mission, now you need to get an education and get married within six months. I knew I was gay, I'm focused on this one thing: You have to find a wife and get married in the temple. I didn't want to sin, I wanted to be active in the church, I was feeling the pressure to get a wife.

I had suppressed my gay feelings for two years, my biggest fear was that those feelings, to be with another man, would be waiting for me as soon as I got off the plane.

And were they, were they waiting there for you when you got off the plane?

Oh yes, they were everywhere. As soon as I was released as a missionary, I kind of felt liberated in a way, I could go to the movies, hang out with friends, I can listened to "worldly" music. I can feel normal again. Absolutely, the temptation was everywhere, from movies to music, it was so strong it was unreal.

So you're in a really bad situation right, you don't want to sin, you want to be active in the church, so how do you play this out?

I'm really active in the church, I'm the ward mission leader, I'm going out with the missionaries four to five times a week, if I wasn't working I was hanging out with the missionaries, taking them grocery shopping.  I'm doing everything I possible could to not be who I was, to fight the urge. To not "sin" because I didn't want to sin. Little did I know that me wanting to be myself was not sinning.

So anyway, I went to the Singles Ward, and this is another thing that really stands out about the members and how they accept diversity. I always knew in the back of my mind, when I would leave a function at church, people were questioning if I was gay. "Why doesn't he come out, why doesn't he just admit it." I knew that, that was my biggest fear of going to a church function is that I knew people were talking about me. There was one night when I was playing church volleyball and I came out and someone had written "fag" on the hood of my car, in the church parking lot. That was a very defining moment for me when I realized that these people don't love me. And you know the church always teaches acceptance and charity, and the love of Christ. They have no love for me, they have no pure love. If I did come out, they wouldn't accept me.

I hit a very, very low point in my life. I became very depressed, I was suicidal. I eliminated myself from that group, that social life. That's when I really started looking outside the church for friends.

I had a friend, he was an investigator. And maybe this is something that you won't understand, as a gay man you can tell another gay man; you just know that you both are, without having to say the words. Anyway, when I first met him I knew that he was, there was this instant chemistry and attraction. While I never acted upon it, I just always knew there was something about him that was attractive to me. This was a couple of years past my mission, I had never acted upon any of my feelings. I had been attending the temple. So one night he invited me over to watch a movie, just the two of us, and we fell asleep. And we were talking and something just same over me, I said I really like our friendship, I like the idea of our friendship, I would just like to take this one step further. I would like to explore what you and I have together. And that was the first time ever that I had admitted to myself out loud that I was gay. From then on, it was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It was like four o'clock in the morning, I had just told another guy that I liked him, that I was gay. Even though I knew that he knew that I was. I had taken that first big step in exposing myself to everyone. I had crossed over that threshold of "coming out" and I can't go back.

I left his house, I'm sitting in my car, I'm thinking this is my chance to tell my parents. So I'm sitting there, I dial my parents phone number; I'm thinking to myself, is this something I really want to do, am I ready for this? Am I ready for what's about to take place in my life, because everything is going to change from this point one.

So I call my parents, my dad answers, he says "hey what's going on?" I said, "I know it's late, I'm sorry if I woke you up." He said, "you know your mom and I have been sitting here watching TV, we have been awake the entire night and something told me you were going to call." I don't know if that was the spirit, but I honestly believe that when I was willing to take that risk, when I decided to be true to myself--I really felt it opened the doors for my family to accept what I'm about to tell them. So I really do believe that it was the right time and the right place to come out to my parents.

I pull up to their house, I stopped the car and I'm thinking, okay you haven't actually told your parents that you're gay, you don't have to tell them, you can say something else in your life is going on, that your not very happy, if you don't really want to do this. So I go into to my parents house, they are both sitting there, I'm sobbing, my mom is saying, "what's wrong, what's going on?" I tell them, "there's something I want to tell you, but I don't know how to say it." She's saying, "please just tell us." Literally every time I tried to tell my parents that I was gay, the words just wouldn't come out. It was like those dreams where someone is chasing you and you are trying to scream, but you can't scream, that's just what it was like. So I sat there saying "I have something to tell you but I don't know how to say it," probably 20 or 30 times I said, "I don't know how to tell you." Finally my mother grabs my arms and says, "whatever it is, just say it, we will still love you." So I sit there with my head in my hands, I'm so ashamed, and I say, "I'm gay."

The first thing that my mother says is, "how do you know?" And at that time, it was so new to me, how was I going to explain me knowing that I was gay to my parents, I didn't even know what that meant. I've never kissed a guy, I've never held hands with a guy, I've never gone on a date with a guy. Did I even know myself what that meant to be gay?  I don't think that I did. Even to this day, having been several years after that, I'm still trying to figure out what that means to me.

So, my dad says, "we'll get you the best treatment, you need to see a doctor, is there some kind of therapy we can put you in? We need to set you up with a counselor, we need to call LDS family services, we need to contact the bishop, the stake president, we need to start you on something so we can take care if this. I think members of the church think this is some kind of a disease, not who you are as a person.

So my parents set me up with a counselor at LDS family services, I'm talking to this guy, I will never forget him, I actually think that he was gay. Anyway, the counsel I was given is that I needed to force myself to fall in love with a woman. That I needed to force myself to go on a date with several different girls every single week. And force myself to develop emotional and sexual feelings for a woman even though they were never there.

Implying that you can force yourself to change your sexual orientation, because it's supposed to be a man and a woman, right, and if God sent you here that way, that wouldn't be fair, so you have to be choosing this, right? 

Yes, I remember very clearly, my therapist, he would take the family proclamation off the wall in his office and he'd have me read it over and over again. And we would say, "anywhere in the proclamation do you see where it says it's supposed to be a man and a man, or a woman and a woman?" And I was just like, "well no." He was like, "well then that teaches us that living a gay life style is sinning against God. It's not what he created us to be, he wants us to be a man and a woman, and to be able to procreate, and to be sealed in the temple. Anything that doesn't fall into that is against what God has taught us to believe. So here I am, I had just come out, I don't even know what that means to come out, and they are already teaching me that I am going against God and that I'm sinning and even though I hadn't acted upon those feelings, I was still sinning.

And here's another kind of thought to that, I don't know if you know much about, SSA or SGA, the church doesn't use the word homosexual or gay, they use the term SSA which means same sex attraction, or SGA, which means same gender attraction. So basically, SSA is that you have the attraction, but you have never acted upon it. So if you have never acted upon the attraction, you are not considered gay, you have SSA. Isn't that interesting?

So, here they are trying to classify all the righteous members who only have the attraction, but have never acted up it, they aren't gay, they only have the attraction. But as soon as you act upon it you're gay. That's how the church differentiates the terminology.

So my therapy is to force myself to kiss a woman, to go out on several dates with them. I thought this was interesting, my therapist says, "I want you to go out this next week, and do activities that are considered masculine." Isn't that so funny? So I said, "well can you clarify that, I don't know what you mean" He said, "I want you to go out and throw a football with one of your straight buddies or I want you to go to the gym and play basketball with all the guys at the gym." And I'm thinking, this is going to help me be straight?

But I'm still a member of the church and I'm thinking, if I'm going to beat this, I have to have faith that what he is teaching me is going to help me not be gay. If I have faith in what this man is telling me to do, I will be on a road to a cure. I thought, I'm going to the temple and if I'm reading my scriptures, and I'm fulfilling my calling as the ward mission leader, if I'm helping the missionaries, if I'm serving other people, and I'm forgetting myself in the Lord's work, he's going to take care of the rest. I fully believed that.

Okay, when did that fall apart for you?

As I became more and more ingrained with my therapist from LDS services, it just became more and more apparent, every single week, that this was doing nothing for me. I was more confused then I already was, and I thought to myself, why can't I feel that what he is telling me is best for me? Something inside of me, just my own intuition, me knowing me as a person, everything he was teaching me was fighting against who I was, and who I knew I wanted to be.

I never told my therapist, that I was going to find a psychiatrist that wasn't LDS, so just on my own, not telling my parents, not telling my bishop, I found a therapist that wasn't LDS, that was very liberal, very gay friendly, I started going to see her and she was actually a lesbian herself. So a couple of weeks go by, I tell her I was so suicidal, because the therapist from the church is telling me to date girls, and I'm trying to date as many girls as I can, but I guess I'm not feeling it, I'm not attracted to them, and I can't get myself to follow along. I keep thinking, I'm having faith, I've been going to the temple, I've been going to the temple, once if not twice a week. So I'm thinking to myself, okay, something is going to happen. Then I would think, well maybe I'm not going with enough faith, maybe I'm not going with an open mind. And maybe I'm not listening carefully enough to the temple ceremony, or the endowment session, maybe I'm doing this wrong. I kept beating myself up thinking, if I hadn't received an answer by now, if the Lord hasn't taken my attraction to other men away from me, I'm obviously doing something wrong.

I was literally beating myself up, I was so unhappy, I made the decision then and there that I was going to stop seeing the LDS therapist. And I was just going to continue to see my therapist that wasn't a part of the church. So I go to her and tell her, "you known, this church teaches me that I am a sinner and I'm this horrible person, me wanting to be with another man is going against God and I'm going to hell, and I won't be sealed to my family in the temple if I live my life this way."

She said, "you know what, all I'm going to tell you is you are at a very vulnerable time in your life, where you really have to decide, am I going to listen to other people and have them tell me how I should be and how I'm going to live my life? Or are you going to listen to your own heart and follow that." That's when I really said, "I'm not going to listen to anyone else, I'm not going to a therapist any more; I know who I am. I knew I wanted to be in a relationship with a man, have a family, that is what I want."

So that's when I stopped going to church and stopped going to the temple. That's when I decided to explore going on dates with men, and having a healthy relationship with a man. That's when I decided to really explore that side of who I was.

That's when you decided to stop going to church, was that hard to do?

Oh yeah, my bishop was wanting to meet with me every week, he wanted to know what I was doing. And I gave him that respect and I went in and saw him. He said the church doesn't have any doctrine or advice for a bishop for dealing with someone who is having trouble with homosexuality. There is no training, there is no teaching, he said at this point, I really don't know what to tell you anymore. I don't know what to say, I don't know what's right, I don't want to tell you something that's wrong. That was almost 6 years ago, I don't know what a bishop would tell a young man today, I would be curious to know what the church tells a young man or woman now, compared to what I was told back then. So that was the very last time that I saw my bishop.

How did you feel about your bishop?

I think he was sincere, I really appreciated that he told me, "I don't even know what to tell you. I don't want to tell you one thing and have it be wrong." I really felt that he was sincere in saying "I don't know what other counsel I can give you." I felt right there, that was enough of an indication to me, that the church was not prepared for this. They don't know how to deal with this. There are no teachings that I have heard of even to this day of how a bishop is counseled to deal with this.

So, the stake president's secretary had been calling me for months, after I had told my bishop that I was gay. He wanted to meet with me, he wanted to make an appointment with me. My last visit with my bishop, and this is something I will never understand about the church, he wanted to know how far I had gone with another man, what I had done. And I told him that was none of his business. Then he said, "are you willing to change? If you are willing to change then we can certainly work with you; but if you have no desire to change-- then I have no choice but to excommunicate you." I said, "well if you think you have that kind of power over me, then I'm leaving," and I got up out of my chair, and I walked out and I have never been back since. That's the last time I have ever been to church.

What is your faith, and how does it shape your life?

You and I were taught that in order to be worshipping, you have to go to a church building and worship with other members of the church. I don't believe that in order to worship God or have a relationship with God, I have to sit for three hours at a church building. I don't believe that at all. I believe me having a relationship with God, is me being a decent person, having healthy relationships with other people, being honest, respecting my parents, just being a good person. That to me is more of a relationship with God, than sitting in a church every Sunday. Even just going on a hike and appreciating the beauty around us, that to me is my relationship with God, it's not having to read the Book of Mormon for 30 minutes everyday. It's not having to read the Bible. It's all around me, it's not in a certain place.

BYU has now come out and said, we accept those that struggle with SSA, we welcome you with open arms. You are worthy to attend our university. But if you act upon it you are no longer allowed. Well, you know, someone who has the attraction is still gay, whether or not they have acted upon it. So now that I have lived the life style, I'm no longer worthy as opposed to those who only had the thought in their heart to be with a man. That's the differentiation, that's what makes them better I guess, better than I.

My mom once asked me, kind of just thinking out loud, "if the church ever allowed you to have a partner, to be in a relationship, to have a calling and have a temple recommend, would you ever come back?" I said, "No, why would I want to be a part of something that's based on conditions, why after all these years that they didn't accept me, why would I want to go back? Sure it would be great for other members of the church, but I just would never go back. I would still have the feeling that members would look at me and think, oh he's one of them." Not like, hey we welcome you to family home evening, to ward temple night. Not that I think that will ever happen, I just would never want to associate myself with something that has excluded me for so long for being who I am.

Did your mother ask you that because she is worried about your salvation?

Oh, yeah for sure. She's worried that I'm not going to be sealed to them and that she won't be my mother after this life. She worries about that all the time. But I also know that now that my mom has seen me not have to struggle with that and struggle with that fight. That's the point I was going to make, I think for the very first time I have seen my mom kind of question the church. Not that I ever think she will leave, because I don't think she will, but I think she is struggling with the fact that she loves and believes in something so much, but they hate my son. So I don't know how she works it out in her mind, if she does, but that's in her own time, her own schedule.

Even being downtown, so close to Temple Square, the members of the church here are so much more liberal, and accepting in their thinking, but as you get closer to Provo, it's like night and day.


End of Part One, of a three part series.