I sped read the 1st three chapters of the Book of Mormon this morning, and some things jumped out.

The Book of Mormon, at least this part, very much follows Old Testament themes of God speaking to a willing individual with a message of repentance for society at large. God has a message, people aren’t listening in general, and he finds someone who will to deliver a message of repentance and warning of the consequences if they don’t. There’s nothing special about Lehi, other than he’ll listen and obey. The importance of obedience to God is paramount. Nephi hears what he says and is obedient to both God and his father’s promptings.

Ultimately God has a big message to deliver through Lehi, and it has nothing to do with starting and running an institution. It’s wholly about the relationship of Lehi and those around him with God. Lehi is not empowered to administer anything or to tell people what to do at the micro level. God has already done that. It’s not as much about “follow the prophet” as it is about following what God has already said. If anyone is empowered to be a ruler, it’s Nephi, who is empowered to be a ruler over his brothers because he’s faithful in keeping the commandments.

"What must I do to be saved?"

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2016:25%20-%2034;&version=31;

As the jailer asked this question above, so should we. Over the last couple of days I was confused by the apparent discrepancy in a couple of general conference talks, so I thought I would do a little research into what the LDS church teaches. Then we can compare the conference talks.

First the basics, from True to the Faith. This manual is ostensibly a youth publication, but it's the most accessible collection of doctrinal descriptions available. It doesn't provide links to the invidual topic headers, just to the entire manual:

http://lds.org/languages/youthmaterials/trueToThefaith/TrueFaith_000.pdf

I'll provide the topic header, followed by the entry.

Heaven

"In the scriptures, the word heaven is used in two basic ways. First, it refers to the place where God lives, which is the ultimate home of the faithful (see Mosiah 2:41). Second, it refers to the expanse around the earth (see Genesis 1:1)."

Kingdoms of Glory (excerpts)

"The celestial kingdom is the highest of the three kingdoms
of glory. Those in this kingdom will dwell forever in
the presence of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.
The celestial kingdom is the place prepared for those
who have “received the testimony of Jesus” and been “made
perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who
wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of
his own blood” (D&C 76:51, 69). To inherit this gift, we must
receive the ordinances of salvation, keep the commandments,
and repent of our sins."
...
"From another revelation to the Prophet Joseph, we learn
that there are three degrees within the celestial kingdom.
To be exalted in the highest degree and continue eternally in
family relationships, we must enter into “the new and everlasting
covenant of marriage” and be true to that covenant. In
other words, temple marriage is a requirement for obtaining
the highest degree of celestial glory."

From the descriptions above, it seems clear to me that what non-LDS Christians refer to as "heaven" is what LDS refer to as the "Celestial Kingdom", the place where God lives. The highest level is accessed as a result of exaltation through temple marriage.

How do we achieve this place? From the Kingdoms of Glory entry:

"The glory you inherit will depend on the depth of your conversion,
expressed by your obedience to the Lord’s commandments.
It will depend on the manner in which you have “received the
testimony of Jesus” (D&C 76:51; see also verses 74, 79, 101)."

From the Salvation entry:

"Eternal Life, or Exaltation. In the scriptures, the words
saved and salvation often refer to eternal life, or exaltation (see
Abraham 2:11). Eternal life is to know Heavenly Father and
Jesus Christ and dwell with Them forever—to inherit a place
in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom (see John 17:3;
D&C 131:1–4; 132:21–24). To receive this great gift, we must
do more than repent of our sins and be baptized and
confirmed by appropriate priesthood authority. Men must
receive the Melchizedek Priesthood, and all Church members
must make and keep sacred covenants in the temple,
including eternal marriage."

OK, with all that background out of the way, let's get into the actual conference talks, the words of the living prophets.

The first talk is a classic, the one that finally convinced me that I could no longer be a fully believing member of the LDS church.

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-947-28,00.html

It has so many issues it deserves a separate post, but let's just examine what Russell Nelson has to say about salvation:

"While salvation is an individual matter, exaltation is a family matter.5 Only those who are married in the temple and whose marriage is sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise will continue as spouses after death6 and receive the highest degree of celestial glory, or exaltation. A temple marriage is also called a celestial marriage. Within the celestial glory are three levels. To obtain the highest, a husband and wife must be sealed for time and all eternity and keep their covenants made in a holy temple.7"

“In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life. [Heavenly Father’s great] plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.”15

"Our Heavenly Father declared, “This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”20 The Atonement of His Beloved Son enabled both of these objectives to be realized. Because of the Atonement, immortality—or resurrection from the dead—became a reality for all.21 And because of the Atonement, eternal life—which is living forever in God’s presence, the “greatest of all the gifts of God”22—became a possibility. To qualify for eternal life, we must make an eternal and everlasting covenant with our Heavenly Father.23 This means that a temple marriage is not only between husband and wife; it embraces a partnership with God.24"

endquote.

Now, here's a talk by Elder D. Todd Christofferson

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1032-6,00.html

"We enter into covenants by priesthood ordinances, sacred rituals that God has ordained for us to manifest our commitment. Our foundational covenant, for example, the one in which we first pledge our willingness to take upon us the name of Christ, is confirmed by the ordinance of baptism. It is done individually, by name. By this ordinance, we become part of the covenant people of the Lord and heirs of the celestial kingdom of God."

"Other sacred ordinances are performed in temples built for that very purpose. If we are faithful to the covenants made there, we become inheritors not only of the celestial kingdom but of exaltation, the highest glory within the heavenly kingdom, and we obtain all the divine possibilities God can give (see D&C 132:20)."

So, what do we actually need to do to return to the presence of God? After reading these sources I'll admit to still being confused.

Elder Christofferson and the True to the Faith entry on the celestial kingdom represent my traditional understanding and what I have been taught in church before, that baptism is the gateway to the celestial kingdom, which is the dwelling place of God. i.e. Heaven.

The "Salvation" entry in True to the Faith seems to agree with what Russell Nelson has to say, that really to return to God's presence, temple marriage is required.

Why does this really make a difference? I think it gives us some insight into the character of God. Bruce R McConkie gave a talk entitled "The Seven Deadly Heresies" that I won't attempt to excerpt:

http://www.lds-mormon.com/heresies.shtml

in which he's pretty clear that you don't get a second chance to accept in the spirit world what you rejected in this world.

My take on this is that if you rejected the LDS missionaries in this world with a clear understanding of what they were preaching, the door to the "celestial kingdom" is forever closed to you.

Even worse, if you were a baptised member of the LDS church and either rejected initially or at some time accepted and then rejected the higher level of testimony and commitment required to qualify for a temple recommend, the higher level is closed to you as well.

So, if Russell Nelson is to be believed, in order actually live with God forever, i.e. to be "saved", I have to sustain him and the other apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators and accept what they describe as the "restored gospel", which is primarily the exclusive authority claims of the church. I have to do that in spite of all the contradictory evidence about the First Vision, priesthood restoration dates, conflicting claims from the witnesses to the gold plates, concerns about the abuses of polygamy, etc.

Based on these hurdles, heaven doesn't seem like it will contain many people, nor does it seem like a set of criteria put in place by a God who loves his children and wants as many as possible to come back. All in all I hope Paul is right instead.

"Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail", or "How God and modern prophets teach us of his unfailing love and lesson manual writers take it away"--

Today I studied this lesson:

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=da135f74db46c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=7148b00367c45110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1&contentLocale=0

If I do say so myself it’s a letter perfect example of why I’m going through this, because what the lesson manual does to the scriptures is quite astounding.

Briefly, this is Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail, much of the record of which is contained in D&C 121 – 3. IMHO the writings in these sections display Joseph Smith at his finest. As a man he rages against the injustice he perceives to have been done to the Saints in Jackson County in Far West. The Lord immediately responds with soothing words reminding him that he is being shaped and tried, and that no experience he could suffer would be worse than what Jesus suffered on our behalf. The abrupt shift in tone from Joseph, the lion of the Lord, and Christ, the lamb of God, have always testified to me of some level of inspiration in Joseph Smith.

The lesson quotes from at least one letter written in Liberty Jail, some of which was later canonized in D & C 121 – 123.

There are some beautiful quotes in here about the love of God and our absolute reliance on Christ, after every other support system we hold dear is stripped away. Here is one of my favorite quotes:

“Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, we are the more ready and willing to lay claim to your fellowship and love. For our circumstances are calculated to awaken our spirits to a sacred remembrance of everything, and we think that yours are also, and that nothing therefore can separate us from the love of God and fellowship one with another [see Romans 8:39]; and that every species of wickedness and cruelty practiced upon us will only tend to bind our hearts together and seal them together in love.”

The text quite properly takes to Romans 8:38 - 39, which reminds us, “ For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

A beautiful lesson. Let’s take a minute and enjoy the chapter headings:

• No affliction can separate us from the love of God and fellowship with one another.
  
• Adversity lasts only a small moment; if we endure well, we will be exalted in the presence of God.
  
• God’s power is greater than any evil, and the truths of the gospel will ultimately triumph.
  
• The Savior understands all our suffering, and He will be with us forever and ever.
  
• The still, small voice whispers consolation to our souls in the depths of sorrow and distress.
  

Certainly nothing to object to here.

Until of course we get to the suggested questions for the instructor, which contain this gem:

“Joseph Smith declared that nothing could separate him and his brethren from the love of God (page 361). What are your thoughts or feelings as you ponder this statement? In what ways can we become separated from God’s love? What are some things we must do to abide in God’s love?”

Now wait just a darn minute. We just had this beautiful lesson that included the words of Joseph Smith and of Paul consoling us that nothing can separate us from the love of God, and then we are asked to list the ways we can become separated from the love of God. Is this a trick question? Of course you would want somebody to requote the lesson material and say “nothing can separate us from God’s love” and there are no “things we can do to abide (remain) in God’s love”, but this is the church, and we know better. The expected answers of sin and disobedience are going to come up, and we’re going to conclude this lesson with the idea that despite what Joseph Smith actually said, God only loves us when we keep the commandments and are obedient to God and our leaders, and rather than walking out of the lesson basking in the love of God as we should, we adjust the ever-present guilt load on our shoulders and trudge out of the room, determined to do better at making God love us.

Simply amazing.

The canon of scripture.

What should go in, and what should go out? Critical question. On one hand we have the bible as the inspired word of god, complete and sufficient. On the other we have the idea of modern revelation as the continually unfolding word of God, because God leads us along, step by step, line upon line, precept upon precept. We’re not led in a straight line, necessarily. We began with The Law, which was added onto and fulfilled by the words of Christ and his original apostles. People got about two thousand years to marinade in the law of Moses, and it was time for the next step. Likewise people got about two thousand years to marinade in the accounts of Christ’s ministry and in the writings of Paul and others, and then it was time for the next step, the Book of Mormon and the “restoration” of Christ’s true church. Or was it? Is the Bible really full and complete in our age, or should we expect something more?

In the interests of brevity I’m going to focus more on the New Testament and the Book of Mormon here rather than debating the apocrypha or whether Moses or Adam were real people or not, because either way the Old Testament is affirmed by Christ and was fulfilled and largely superseded. It’s not the rock of my faith.

Having read through Chapter 3 of Grudem’s book, here are my thoughts, as they emerge. They are not his thoughts.

There are several bases for the New Testament canon.

One is that the authors were either apostles themselves or trusted associates. They had at most one degree of separation from the eyewitnesses of the actual events of Christ’s ministry. i.e. they were either witnesses and apostles, like Matthew and John, they were apostles or other leaders whose authority was attested to by the other apostles, like Paul and James, or they were trusted associates like Mark and Luke. I think Jude and the author of Hebrews fit into this latter category, although more loosely than the others.

Another is that their theology and message are generally consistent with each other.

From a practical standpoint, probably the most influential characteristic is that the New Testament books are the set of books generally attested to by the emerging church through the 4th century. Over the years books were in and books were out, but this set was generally accepted by the church as authoritative. Whether through revelation or just personal opinion I’ll leave to others to decide.

The important thing is that these books represent the best testimony we have from the most reliable eyewitnesses we have that was generally agreed on as being accurate and authoritative. From that point on in history the works are by their very nature going to be derivative and based on something other than eyewitness testimony.

Now, how does the Book of Mormon fit into this?

For purposes of this discussion I’ll leave questions of content aside and pick those up later. I love the Book of Mormon, because I think that generally it’s a truer witness of the doctrines we have extracted from the Bible than the Bible is itself. I think the orthodox trinity is clearly taught in the Book of Mormon, as is the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith and many other things.

But, does that mean it’s deserving of a place in the canon alongside the Bible?

Whatever your opinions about the origins and truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, it’s a revealed document. We don’t have original manuscripts from the original authors, nor do we have the historical witness of those people. They and their original writings have vanished. The primary witness we have of the Book of Mormon is Joseph Smith. If any actual plates really did exist, the only person who knew what was on them was Joseph Smith. There is no historical evidence of anything contained in the book, nor any other independent witnesses. There are no other testaments of the same events for us to weigh and compare. We don’t have the original plates, and the testimony of those who claimed to have seen and handled them is extremely suspect. Basically what you are left with is to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, and either you receive a spiritual witness that it is “true” in some sense or you don’t. That’s your only possible confirmation. The spirit either testifies to you of its truth, or he doesn’t.

What if Joseph Smith, with all his human frailties, got it wrong? What if parts of the Book of Mormon are either incorrect, made up, or some critical pieces are somehow missing? Again, we have no independent witnesses to the content or anything else about it, other than gold plates may have existed. We have no independent witnesses of the actual events or to the correctness of the “translation”, other than whatever we get from the Holy Spirit.

Subjectively I don’t think the Book of Mormon meets the same standard the New Testament does.

I think of the Bible as a whole being like the constitution, like the keel of a ship. There’s a huge interconnected depth of support for the New Testament, from its historical background to the consensus-building process involved in the actual development of the canon. Because of that there’s a lot of human frailty we just don’t have to worry about. Is there human frailty in the Bible? No doubt, but the circumstances surrounding its origin give us the best possible basis for it being an accurate reflection of the actual events that happened and the doctrine taught by the church from the beginning.

We just don’t have that with the Book of Mormon. Your only choice is to pray about it and either accept it or reject it based on your spiritual witness of it. It doesn’t have the history behind it, nor does it have the consensus of the community behind it. It’s like a stool with one leg, albeit a very strong and important one.

The sad fact is that the witness of the Holy Spirit is often subject to a lot of interpretation. It’s most useful for more general life questions and not for ferreting out specifics. In general what I think we get from the Holy Spirit is more confirmation than specific word-for-word direction, and given that it’s most useful to have a variety of witnesses that agree. I believe the New Testament meets that standard much better than the Book of Mormon does.

I haven't posted here in about a year, mainly because I had nothing new to say on the subject. I had generally been wandering back and forth around a faith kind of in the midpoint between orthodox mormonism and a more evangelical, biblically based Christianity.

Well, as a result of some experiences and reading I did early this year, the balance has shifted more towards a more biblically based faith, and it feels like it might just be for good this time. Maybe more on that later.

Welcome to a journal of a journey I plan to take this summer.

I’m not totally sure what to call this. I don’t know whether it’s a journal, a prayer journal, a book report, whatever.

I’m on a four month hiatus from BSF (Bible Study Fellowship, http://www.bsfinternational.org/), a conservative bible study I've been involved with for about two years, and I’ve decided to use this time to study a systematic theology book written by a “Reformed” author in order to try to figure out what I believe. I’ve dabbled in a lot of different sources over the last four years, and maybe it’s time to try to clarify some things and bring this to closure.

I’ll be reading “Systematic Theology”, by Wayne Grudem, re-reading the Book of Mormon, reading the general conference talks that were given this past April, and getting caught up in the Ensign, and maybe other stuff. My deadline for finishing all of this is about the middle of September, when BSF starts up again.

Rather than writing this like a book report, my goal is try to make this compact, so I’m going to focus more on what I believe and the impressions I get rather than debating a lot of chapter and verse or waxing eloquent on the author’s style or anything like that.

An exception to this will probably be General Conference talks. I have a tendency to read those and shred the contents, so I’ll probably be a little more specific there.

Thoughts on the temple--
This is kind of a weird post for a "disaffected" blog, but maybe it will average out with some other things I have said previously. If you're non-LDS you will probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but I just want to write and not translate right now.

Of late I've developed a real sense of enjoyment in attending the temple. I recognize that the temple doesn't work for everyone. Often it hasn't worked for me, but that's because I went out of a sense of duty. I was supposed to go, so I went. Under those circumstances it was kind of claustrophobic, without windows. I felt sort of trapped. I couldn't get out.

My circumstances are different now. I go because I want to, because I enjoy that sense of peace and separation from the world. I enjoy the symbolism of entering into the celestial room, as though entering heaven.

I had the chance to visit the Mt Timpanogos temple a month or so ago. I hadn't been to a large temple in about eight years, and the grandeur of the celestial room was literally awe-inspiring. The bright light from the windows just made the entire room glow. An entire large room of people dressed in white. They looked like angels.

I guess my thoughts tonight were more on leaving the temple than entering it.

I don't really take the temple for granted anymore, because each visit could be my last. I recognize I barely qualify for a recommend because my activity is about 50-50, and many bishops would start to ask me probing questions about my testimony of the "restoration", and my recommend would end up locked in his desk until I could produce more orthodox answers. I really stand out in the temple, because I have a beard and a ponytail these days. These are going to be red flags to a more strict bishop, and away goes my recommend based on his feelings about my answers. For now, though, I'm enjoying it while I can.

Used to be I walked out of the temple and I was struck by how "unclean" the world was. I earned my recommend by being righteous and by following the rules, and after walking out of the temple I didn't want to touch anything. People just looked dirty and clueless compared to those angels dressed in identical white clothing. The temple was a safe haven from the chaos of the unwashed and uneducated on the outside.

My perspective has changed.

I haven't "earned" the right to go to the temple. It's random chance as much as anything, the luck of the draw of bishops. To the extent righteousness gets me in the door, it's not my righteousness. It's the atonement of Christ that washes away my sins and makes me righteous, not my own efforts. My own "efforts" only count to the extent that I have accepted the grace that has been offered me and done the few simple things asked by the LDS church. I no longer see the world as being unclean. The temple is not a place to hide from the world. It's a place to prepare to engage it. Our mission is out in the world, spreading the message of Christ and ministering to those who need us, not hiding from them because we're somehow "cleaner" than they are and have a membership card to prove it. We're not called to dust off the world as we walk into the temple. We're called to try to take the temple with us into the world. We're not better than anybody else because we can go to the temple. We are the luckiest people in the world because we can.

Empathy--
Since I've become a less orthodox Latter-day Saint I find I get depressed a lot. I feel bad about things. I feel bad about people. I wish I could fix problems better. I wish I could communicate my faith better.

One of the things I realized yesterday is that I feel bad more because I empathize with people more. Before I used to look at the bad things that happened to people, and I thought "if that person were only a member of the church, this wouldn't have happened". "If only that person were more active in the church, this wouldn't have happened." "If only that person followed more correct principles, this wouldn't have happened". I used to look at entire categories of people as sort of broken and unclean and mostly responsible for the bad things that happened to them. I put an emotional distance between myself and them that didn't involve me in their problems.

I don't really do that as much anymore. I don't apply those silly rules as much, and consequently I hurt for people more, regardless of what they might have done to get themselves into trouble. I just feel bad for their problems and wish there was something I could do to make it better. I tend to think of most everybody as kind of a mixed bag, struggling to make their way in this world as best they can, based on the information they have.

That doesn't mean I actually *do* anything most of the time. I just feel bad for them. I identify with them.

I think Jesus was like that. He looked at people, shook his head, and tried to love them anyway.

It's always interesting reading old posts in this blog. The last couple of times I have posted, I was pretty disaffected. I guess my heart has softened some since February. I really enjoyed the March issue of the Ensign, which really collected together a lot of doctrine about Christ in one place, where I really needed to hear it. My daughter was out here a couple of weeks ago and I became kind of reconverted to the extended family aspects of the church. Which, granted, don't save us, but it's still pleasant to be a part of.

I read a run of conference talks from the October conference that seemed very shallow to me early in the year, and I just had to put the Ensign down for a couple of months. Lately I've been working on the Sunday sessions from last October, and there were a lot of really powerful talks in that conference. And IMHO a couple of clinkers, but in general it seemed like the right things were said.

I had a nice experience in the temple this evening, plus I listened to an uncut version of an NPR "Speaking of Faith" interview with Robert Millett:

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/insidemormonfaith/index.shtml

He pushes all the right buttons with me. He's open about the fact that he doesn't understand some things, but for him it's more about the process that Joseph Smith started rather than the lurid details about Joseph Smith himself.

I went to the temple with my daughter a couple of weeks ago and had a good experience. Tonight was good because there were some odd disruptions in the session that left me with a lot of time to think. I really enjoy that feeling of separation from the world I get in the temple. I remember reading (really skimming) a book on Heaven once written by Baptists with varying opinions on what it would be like. I realized that I know exactly what heaven will be like. It will be just like the temple, with people dressed in white moving about in quiet reverence. I'm coming to believe that I needed to go through a process of tearing my testimony down to the chassis and rebuilding it, in order to get rid of all the cultural mormonism and to replace it with what the scriptures actually say and what you can find the general authorities teaching. I still don't understand why some of the history happened the way it did and why the church obscures its origins so much, but I guess I just find the doctrine too compelling to walk away from. In many ways I think Evangelical churches do a better job of explaining the bible, and Anglican churches do a better job of pure worship. As a doctrinal package, though, I seem to be stuck with being LDS. It just reflects what I believe and is the best approximation I can find right now of biblical community.

Check back in a couple of months and I guess I'll be disaffected again, but for now I'm enjoying what I have.

Thoughts on President Hinckley, part 5 --

I thought this was a pretty moving testimony.

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-4-27,00.html

How different would the church be if the GAs spoke like this about Christ more often?

Thoughts on President Hinckley, part 4 --

Well, this isn't actually about President Hinckley, but I'm still going through old conference talks as a memorial, so he gets the credit/blame either way.

I listened to this one today:

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-4-19,00.html

There was something about it that bugged me, so rather than continuing with another conference talk I listened to a sermon from one of the Protestant pastors I follow.

The difference jumped out at me immediately.

His latest sermon series is on the book of Collossians, and in summary the Collossians are overwhelmed by Roman culture and the messages of "Caesar is Lord". Paul preaches the contrary message that "Jesus is Lord". The pastor's premise is that our society is just not that much different culturally from the Collossians. Nike is Lord. Cadillac is Lord. Microsoft is Lord. Etc.. We're bombarded with messages from people demanding to be our Lord, yet there is only one Lord who will save, redeem, and satisfy, and that is Jesus.

Considering President Faust's talk, who is Lord?

I think he sums up his opinion in this kind of weird quote of "Invictus":

"I am the master of my fate:I am the captain of my soul"

Why, we are, of course. The important thing is self-mastery. We are the masters of our fate. We are the captains of our souls. We are in control. We are in charge.

I guess I no longer suffer under the illusion that I am the master of my fate or the captain of my soul. I tried that for a long time, and it didn't work. I think Jesus is a better Lord and master than I am.

As a complete aside I thought this was a particularly unusual thing to quote, for a special witness of Jesus Christ:

"I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul."

Invictus strikes me as vaguely Deist and not very Christian, but I'm no English major.

Thoughts on President Hinckley, part 3 --

As a sort of memorial I am trying to listen or read all of President Hinckley's conference talks. I guess I am giving him one last chance to try to convert me. So far I would have to admit it's not working terribly well.

I have several years' worth of conference on CD, and while I was grabbing talks for my iPod I also ripped President Faust's talks also, as I always loved his talks and his plain-spoken and gentle way of making his points.

Last night while walking I listened to these talks:

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-19-1,00.html

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-19-6,00.html

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-19-20,00.html

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-19-22,00.html

It was sort of an interesting view of the gospel. In summary the church is a large and impressive organization that requires a lot of skill and resources to manage. Primarily the gospel seems to be about my behavior. I need to be faithful and obedient and work hard to move the kingdom of God forward. I need to reach out to others and serve. I need to be a moral and spiritual person. I need to work on being perfect, which admittedly I can only completely achieve through the atonement, but there is a long list of things I need to work on.

Additionally, Bishops are caring, capable people and need to be respected and venerated as they carry out their many challenging responsibilities. More than the rest of us they are to be held to an incredibly high standard, serving not only their congregations, but being exemplary in the workplace and not letting their families down either.

By contrast, I also listened to this talk:

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-19-26,00.html

Now, of these people and these talks, which one is the special witness of Jesus Christ?

As sort of a postscript to yesterday's entry, I had kind of a trifecta yesterday. I listened to one of President Hinckley's conference talks, I went to an Ash Wednesday service at our Episcopal church, and I listened to a sermon from a local Baptist church while I walked in the evening.

I realized that I spent a lot of yesterday in kind of a funk, which I often do when I get drawn back into LDS church issues.

President Hinckley's talk reminded me that the church is less a congregation of worshipers than a large management training exercise for priesthood leaders. Probably the best thing the church does is to train people who can speak in public, teach classes, and run groups. After all, is BYU known for its school of social work, or for its school of management and its business programs?

The doctrines of Joseph Smith, expanded on by those who followed him, creates an organization that is really one large food chain leading to godhood for those with "demonstrated ability" and being put out to pasture in the telestial kingdom for the lesser.

I am not one with "demonstrated ability". I'm a passable speaker, but at the time of my disaffection I was the oldest person in the Elders Quorum. I'm a counselor, not a presider. When I was 1st counselor in the EQ presidency the president moved, and they called the 2d counselor to be the president. It was hugely embarrassing to me, and a tremendous lesson I won't expand on now.

If the church is really true I will always inhabit the lower rungs of whatever kingdoms are present. I will never rise in the food chain, because of my lack of "demonstrated ability". Thus the closer I get to it the darker my mood.

Despite all that I still want more than anything to belong to the church the missionaries taught me about. That vision somehow won't go away. I was talking to Wife of Bath last night, and I told her that I would go back to full activity and give my heart to the LDS church if it would only do two things: tell me the truth and let me think for myself. If it would be honest about its history and the frailty of its leaders and allow me to follow my own spiritual witness about doctrine and practice, I would go back. I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

Thoughts on President Hinckley, Part 2 --

This is going to be kind of a multicultural day for me. I started out by doing my Bible Study Fellowship homework, listened to a general conference address from President Hinckley on the way to work, and I'm going to an Ash Wednesday service in an Episcopal church this evening. I should find something Buddhist to do after the Ash Wednesday service just to round things out.

Anyway, as kind of a personal tribute to President Hinckley I decided to listen to as many of the general conference addresses he gave as president of the church as I could find, and read the others from the church website. I have the October 2001 GC on CD, so I started with those.

So far I have listened to his talk from the Priesthood session and the Sunday morning talk he gave. This was the first general conference after the introduction of the Perpetual Education Fund and after the September 11th attacks.

I'm used to listening to podcasts from Protestant ministers, so the differences in content were pretty apparent. In these two talks President Hinckley doesn't really dwell on God or spiritual matters much. His September 11th talk starts on the theme of defending ourselves from evil and the sacrifices involved, and segues into fairly familiar themes of getting out of debt and self-reliance in the face of global economic uncertainty. The PEF talk was designed to boost support for that program and talks a lot about the mechanics of it and gives some vignettes of the participants.

A couple of things that caught my ear were the way he described the two men running it, John K Carmack and another emeritus GA, (Richard ?) Cook. He venerated their worldly accomplishments as an attorney and a former comptroller for the Ford Motor company and described them as men of great ability.

He likewise talked about the beneficiaries of the PEF as returned missionaries of faith and ability who need a little help to get started so they can start careers, raise families, and become future leaders of the church.

You can tell from these talks that he really judges success in terms of character. Thrift. Self-reliance. The ability to work hard. Obedience. He doesn't really describe the PEF administrators as men of compassion. He admires them as good managers and men of ability. Likewise the PEF is not about homeless people or the desperately poor. It's about returned missionaries who need a little help to become successful. Always the scorecard. Those who have, get. Those who qualify, prosper. Those who don't are like the 5 slacker virgins. Unless you make it over the line, the lifeboat with the more worthy pulls away and leaves you behind. Always the church is about venerating the successful.

The talk finished before I got to work, so I listened to a MoTab choir hymn from the same conference, "Nearer My God To Thee". That hymn always reminds me of my mother's funeral. There were six people at the graveside, including Wife of Bath and I, pretty much everybody left in the world who cared about her at all. We couldn't find a minister, we couldn't find an LDS bishop, or anybody else to conduct, so the funeral home asked me to do it. Having been in an Elders Quorum presidency and having spoken in church several times this was not a great stretch. I conducted, assigned prayers, WoB and I picked the songs, I gave the eulogy, and either the opening or closing prayer. I had the skills to do all those things because of the skills the church had developed in me as a priesthood holder.

As I pulled into a parking space I had just a few moments to reflect on the many ways I have been shaped as a person by the church and the many things I have learned. It certainly refined my character and taught me how to speak and preside in religious meetings. I have always been blessed in the experiences I have had exercising my priesthood. I would certainly not be the person I am today without those things.

I just wanted to record a few thoughts about Gordon B Hinckley.

Wife of Bath and I went to the broadcast of his funeral Saturday, and it was a moving experience. My father died when I was 17, and my mother died about six years ago. I wasn't that close to my father, and my mother was clearly ready to go home. I didn't cry at either of their funerals, and wasn't really that upset at their deaths. Both had had long illnesses, and I was just worn out by the experiences.

President Hinckley's funeral was a very emotional experience for me. He touched me deeply in many ways. His practical wisdom and gentle humor was very endearing. Much of my vision of what it means to be married comes from his relationship with Marjorie. Several parts of the funeral just made me gasp out loud in tears. One was after his coffin was wheeled into the Conference Center and they showed the First Presidency with his empty chair. Another was at the end of the funeral after all the tributes about him, when after having watched his coffin placed in the hearse, without warning they cut to a documentary of him being with the people of the church around the globe, loving them and being loved by him.

I never actually met him, but I saw him in person three times. Once at a regional conference where he spoke with Sister Hinckley and twice at the dedication of the Raleigh NC temple. In all those occasions you could tell he really wanted to speak to and touch each person individually, but time and numbers just wouldn't permit.

At the funeral they recounted his legacy. They talked about the hundreds of thousands of miles he traveled. The growth of the church. The number of temples he built. The number of temples he dedicated. His warm and folksy humor. His love for the people of the church, and their love for him. His testimony of the restored gospel. His accomplishments were numerous.

Having said all that and despite my feelings for the man personally, it just seemed to me like there was something missing.

Given all his personal accomplishments, is all this really what prophets of the Lord are known by?

What does it really mean to be a special witness of Jesus Christ?

The one thing that seemed conspicuously absent to me was much discussion about his testimony of Jesus Christ. He obviously had a burning testimony of Joseph Smith and the "restoration" of the gospel, as we tell the story in the LDS church. His last General Conference talk, his last message before being called home, was essentially a recital of the Joseph Smith story. I counted, and there were 12 references to Joseph Smith and 6 to Jesus Christ. So, at least at the end, who was he a special witness of? He recited facts about Jesus Christ in his talks, and he clearly understood the mechanics of the atonement and Jesus' role as savior. It strikes me that the primary love he always expressed was his love for the church, the "restored" gospel, and Joseph Smith. A few years ago when he was diagnosed with cancer he gave what sounded so much like his eulogy that he included a disclaimer that it wasn't. In it, in his warm personal way, he talked about the many ways in which the church had blessed his life and the inspiring people he had met and served with as a result. Any serious discussion of the nature of his personal relationship with Jesus Christ seemed particularly absent, as though the saving relationship were the one with the church, the one that prepared us for judgment, and Christ was a distant figure we only meet at the end, the one with the scorecard in his hand.

In the Baptist bible study I go to we discuss the concept of saving faith. Their definition of saving faith is an understanding that we are saved by faith in Christ alone, and works are an inevitable byproduct of that faith. Unless we truly understand that we are saved through the atonement and not as a reward for our own works, we don't understand Jesus as our savior and we are not truly "saved". At this writing I'm not totally sure what I think of that, but it's an interesting concept to think about.

During the funeral, despite the love I have for Gordon Hinckley as a person, I found myself wondering whether he really thought he was saved by the atonement, or whether in his heart he felt saved by his relationship to the church, through the doctrines expounded by Joseph Smith, and through the ordinances performed through the priesthood authority of the LDS church. Did he really have "saving faith"? Only God knows for sure.

Gordon, God be with you until we meet again. I pray you had saving faith in Christ. Give my love to Marjorie, because I'm sure that wherever you are, she is there also. The alternative would be hell for you, whether it was the highest degree of celestial glory or not. Tell Jesus how much we love him, even though we don't show it very well or very often. Help him understand how hard it is to sort all this out sometimes, and encourage him to have compassion on us sinners who are just trying to figure all this out. Thanks for everything you did for us. Thanks for doing your best to lead us down the road you thought led to Christ, even if it was a long and circuitous path at times.

The latest --

I haven't posted in awhile, so I thought I would provide a short update.

The last few entries I made here were pretty positive about the church, but since September/October I have been trending the other way pretty substantially. In summary I have been attending a non-denominational bible study, and the contrast between how other churches teach the bible and how the LDS church approaches it is stark. This bible study basically talks about the bible and Jesus and not much else. It serves to illuminate just how much of what we do in the LDS church is focused on promoting the church and reinforcing the authority of the leaders. The study is held in a large Baptist church and most of the people in the class (200+) are Baptists, yet they never talk about the Baptist church, quote former Baptist leaders, etc. Just the bible and Jesus.

One of the things we covered a couple of months ago was the concept of "saving faith", which is basically an understanding that we depend on Jesus for our salvation and nothing else. Not ordinances, not our works, etc. I can't hope to do this subject justice in the space I have here, but it again helped me to appreciate how much we do in the LDS church is designed to convert people to the church rather than to Christ. Basically other churches try to convert people to Christ and then hope they find a church. The LDS church converts them to the church first, and then hopes they find Christ.

I'm also disheartened by the way they are handling the media issues surrounding Mitt Romney and some of the uncomfortable doctrine being exposed. i.e. whether Jesus and Satan are brothers, whether polygamy actually did take place after 1890 when it was officially abandoned, etc. Rather than being upfront about these things they are resorting to mealy-mouthed PR responses which are technically correct but not really truthful. These are questions that should be addressed head on and not obfuscated.

Recently Mitt Romney said he doesn't believe God has spoken to prophets since Moses, which totally disavows Joseph Smith and every other LDS prophet. Granted he doesn't speak for the church, but I think this is a representative approach. Officially, instead of standing up for what we believe, they are trying to blur the very distinctions we should be the most proud of, if this is really God's true church on the earth.

In summary I am not in a good place with respect to the LDS church right now. I love the people. The culture is my adopted heritage. Much of the unique doctrine Joseph Smith taught may well be true. However, I have difficulty giving my heart to a church that doesn't teach what I consider saving faith and that continues to be deceptive in public about its doctrine and practices.

It's hard to say where I will be a year from now, but before, I was unsettled by my concerns. I wasn't sure what to do. I was torn between the good and the bad in the church. Now I understand why things bother me, and I can easily separate my love for the people from my disdain for the institutional church. I understand that the "restoration" merely restored priesthood authority, and I just don't think that's important anymore. I have trouble sustaining leaders at the general level who are not totally honest in what they present to the public.

Returning to the Temple --
I had a really good interview with my stake president a couple of nights ago. I re-iterated all my concerns, as well as the fact that despite all that I feel called to stay in the church for whatever reason. It's too much a part of my outlook on life to do anything different. For some reason I have been planted in the LDS church, and I feel like the right thing to do is to work out my salvation within that context rather than elsewhere. I mentioned my evolving understanding of what "worthiness" means, and how I used to think it was mostly up to me to be worthy, but now I appreciated that as long as I was doing my best I was worthy, because the atonement makes up the difference. Instead of 99% being on my shoulders, I can rely on Christ for that 99% through the miracle of grace. He told me he wished he could bottle that and give it to most of the members he meets with, who are crushing themselves under the weight of perfectionism. He felt I was ready to return to the temple and signed my recommend.


I went to the temple for the first time in about a year last night and had a good experience. Nothing really earth-shaking in the presentation of the endowment. I realized that I put the temple in a different context now. Before I went because I was supposed to, because it was ward temple night, because we are supposed to go once a month in order to more fully use the temple, etc.. It was time to cut the grass, throw on a white shirt, race out the door to the temple, race home, and get ready for the next day. I no longer subscribe to that approach. I should go from now on when the spirit dictates and not cram other activities around it.
I am very "different" in the temple, since I have a beard and haven't had a real haircut since September. I think I will progress to the ponytail stage next month, and it will be interesting to see what kind of reaction I get to that.


As I entered the Celestial Room I realized how much I missed that sense of peace that can be found there. Our temple is right next to a busy road, so you can almost always hear faint traffic noise outside. I guess that serves as a reminder of the intrusion of the world outside and the inevitability of having to make our "re-entry". For me I appreciated that the temple is truly a holy place, and temple worship is something I need to hold onto and not let slip out of my grasp again.


I guess another major difference I realized is that I don't see the temple as the only "holy" place. I am looking forward to visiting the National Cathedral with Wife of Bath sometime, and I realized also that there are probably other "holy places" in the city where I live that I have overlooked. For me, though, the temple still has a great deal of meaning.


As I sat in the Celestial Room I thought of a scripture, and went got a bible and looked it up: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%203:14-19;&version=31;
I guess that's what the temple means to me now, rather than being a "good conduct" award as I viewed it before.


All the other concerns I had before are still out there. The church oversimplifies its history to the point of being deceptive, maintains an almost cult-like reverence of its leadership, and focuses way too much on works and conformity to the point where it chews some people's self respect to pieces, when it could serve as a poignant reminder of the love of God, who gave his son as a sacrifice for sin and to exemplify what it means to lead a moral and meaningful life. Somehow those concerns seem secondary to me now, with the most important thing being working out what God has called me to do despite all those things and to live the Kingdom of God in whatever faith community I'm supposed to do that in.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Bishop's Office --
I've had a number of really positive experiences with the LDS church over the last several weeks. I was involved in a move project for a sister with no able-bodied males around the house, pneumonia, a handicapped mother, and a two-story house literally packed from floor to ceiling with dusty stuff. Dolls, fabric, books, clothes, etc.. She was using an "owner's suite" sized bathtub as a laundry hamper, for example. Clothes everywhere. I think we moved at least seven full containers worth of stuff out of that house. She was in trouble, and the ward bailed her out.
During the project one of the high priests from our ward, who happens to be a high councilman, called me aside and asked me to help give a blessing. Now, I probably haven't been in church more than half a dozen times this year and he knows that, yet he called on me anyway. I was just really touched by his faith in me and by the simple faith of the sister involved, who is going through a nasty divorce and has seven kids at home.

Then I had my PPI with my EQ president, which was likewise a positive experience, full of Christ-like concern for me and the families I home teach.

As I pulled out of the stake center parking lot I stopped to look at the temple (which we share a parking lot with), and I came to the realization that despite all my concerns about the church, I couldn't imagine not being able to worship in the temple.

I reflected back on some of the thoughts I had about the PBS special on the church.

I realized while watching that documentary that for better or for worse the church is part of my heritage, even though I'm an adult convert. The way I view religion is through the paradigms I have been taught. Tithing, sabbath observance, scripture study, the desire for true Christian community, and many other things are just part of who I am now, and I can't deny it. I was touched by many of the stories, both by Marlin K Jensen's "conversion" story on his mission and by Margaret Toscano's story of her excommunication.

For whatever reason the Lord led me into this church. I don't claim to know all the reasons why. It just is that way. I don't understand all the historical issues, the Book of Abraham, post-manifesto polygamy, etc., but despite all that I continue to feel a spiritual witness that I'm supposed to continue to be a part of it. At least for now.

Anyway, given all that I felt like the time was right to meet with my bishop to find out what the roadmap was to get my temple recommend back. I haven't paid tithing to the church in over a year, my attendance has been spotty, and I have had some word of wisdom issues, all of which he knows about. I was expecting some kind of metric I had to meet, like being fully active, paying tithing, and holding a meaningful calling for six months or something like that.
He basically looked at me and said, "do you think you're ready to go back to the temple?". I said I did. And he just whipped out the recommend book and we went through the questions. My understanding of what those questions mean has evolved a lot over the last several months. Based on my understanding of what I think they mean, along with my commitment to fix the things we both knew were broken, he handed me a signed temple recommend.

It was a very moving moment for me, mainly because of the level of trust my bishop showed me. He told me what a good person I was and how happy he was that I had reached this point again, and he actually cried. As a former Air Force pilot he told me he would be happy to have me as his wingman anytime, and from a pilot who flew in Viet Nam that meant something.
Another funny thing happened also. Since then I have had a lot of trouble getting worked up over all those irritations with the church that used to just push me over the edge. I was reading some statements of Brigham Young's just yesterday about how women could essentially "trade up" to a priesthood holder with a higher office without needing a divorce, much like you would shop for a nicer car. Things like that used to just push me over the edge, but I just can't get worked up over something Brigham Young may have said 150 years ago. It just doesn't seem relevant to me right now.

Well, this process is ongoing. I am not and will not ever be TBM again. I am probably too broken to ever do missionary splits again, or to teach Sunday School in any fashion other than maybe Elders Quorum lessons. I know too much. Although I can sustain the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve as prophets, seers, and revelators, that is probably more because I have dumbed the title down more than anything. I think lots of religious leaders are prophets, seers, and revelators. God works through lots of people and lots of churches, even non-Christian ones. If you asked me if the Dalai Lama was a prophet, seer, and revelator, I would probably say yes.
At this point in time I guess I am seeing the church sort of like a marriage. You enter relationships with people mostly on faith, and they disappoint you. Mature, committed people try to work through relationships rather than just ending them and moving on to the next one, carrying the same baggage that doomed the previous one to failure. For whatever reason I think I am supposed to stick with this and try to work it out, at least for now. Naturally your answer will be different, and that's how it should be. I recognize that many people are damaged by their experience in the church, and I am not trying to say that you are not "mature" somehow if you have decided to quit or stop participating. Only that this what I feel like am being called to at this point in time. More later, no doubt.

The Bearing of Testimony --
I got out of bed yesterday morning with the realization that I was going to bear my testimony in church.
This was a little unusual for me, since in 23 years in the LDS church I have only borne my testimony in fast and testimony meeting twice. Also, I haven't been to a sacrament meeting since about the second week in March. Nonetheless I knew that I had a message to deliver on the subject of joy.
The 1st counselor in the bishopric went first and bore a stirring testimony about the reality of God and Christ and talked about his wife being able to be in Utah when her mother died of cancer. As I listened to that I realized that I wanted to follow him, before somebody else got up and spoke about a family vacation, the knowledge that their dog was going to be resurrected, etc..
Basically what I said, to quote from a Chris Tomlin song, is "the joy of the Lord is my strength", and that joy is our birthright. Romans 8:16-17 tells us we are children of God, and if children, then heirs. If being an heir to everything God has, including possibly his very nature, is not a source for joy, I don't know what is. The problem is, we let things get in the way. Sin, materialism, and most commonly filling our lives with too many good things that distract us from being able to ponder and feel the spirit and remind ourselves of that joy that should be ours.
In summary I bore my testimony that I knew the church was true. My understanding of that was evolving, but I knew it was true. I testified that Joseph Smith was a prophet who translated the Book of Mormon. My understanding of that was evolving, but I knew it was true. More than all that I bore my testimony of the risen Christ as not only the example of perfect morality, but perfect compassion.
Of all the times I have ever spoken from the pulpit, this was probably the most "on" I have ever been. It couldn't have really come out better if I had written it out. The interesting thing was that despite feeling the Holy Spirit like a rushing wind, I was a little hung over from the night before. :-)
I rarely drink alcohol anymore because one drink is enough to give me a headache the next day, along with an upset stomache. I haven't had beer in nearly 20 years, but I was at a going-away party for a co-worker and kept eyeing the kegs in the corner. Finally curiousity got the better of me and I had two cups of beer. After that my boss immediately pigeonholed me about a change in top-level management for about half an hour, and the beer made it a lot easier to listen to him go on and on about a tedious work situation at a party.
I paid for it a little bit Sunday morning, but it wasn't too bad.
Over the last couple of months I have come to some conclusions, especially after listening to the PBS special on the church. Despite my many concerns, the Lord led me to the LDS church for some reason and refuses to lead me totally out of it. It's my cultural heritage, even though I'm an adult convert with no real pioneer heritage. The stories of Jackson County, Far West, Nauvoo, and Kirtland are my stories. The community that was functionally pushed outside the United States because of their religious beliefs and practices is my community. I look at the world through Mormon eyes, at least for right now. Having been away from my ward for over a month, even having attended another church, I miss the conviction and the sense of purpose. I miss people so moved by their testimonies of Christ that they cry over the pulpit. I don't deny the historical coverups, Mountain Meadows, dissembling statements by President Hinckley that "I don't know that we teach that", etc., but for all intents and purposes this is my church and my heritage and I can't walk away from it just yet. Neither can I be fully a part of it, because the spirit that I carried into my meetings yesterday is not totally sustainable in church. There's a real spirit of worship in my Episcopal congregation, and I could never stay away from the celebration of the Eucharist for too long. It's just too moving. For the most part my ward is in need of an infusion of worship and joy. It doesn't produce it. It's too full of tired young couples trying to manage their kids and callings and careers, just putting one foot in front of the other and slogging through the lessons and talks and trying to keep the programs running.
I come to this position especially in light of some of the interviews that were posted from the PBS special, especially http://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/holland.html and http://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/jensen.html. Elder Holland made some fascinating comments about how the issue of Blacks and the priesthood was handled in the past, and he acknowledged that many people have issues with the historicity of the Book of Mormon without being run out of the church. I thought Elder Jensen made some interesting comments about opening up the archives of the church to foster a second type of history. The church's area is faith-promoting history, while at the same time allowing others to pursue a more balanced approach. There is more going on here than just the correlated product that is the public face of the church right now, and I sense sort of a tacit permission to go beyond that. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future. We actually spent about 5 minutes talking about the Mountain Meadows Massacre in priesthood opening exercises yesterday, so real history is beginning to slowly work its way through the membership.
Anyway, that's how it looks this month. :-)

The Smell of Death –

I make no secret of the fact that I tend to bridge the LDS and non-LDS doctrinal worlds. I find witnesses of both things. Some say I have to choose. I’m not sure I do. When I go to a library do I have to pick books by only one author, or do I have to read books by different authors from different perspectives in order to find truth for myself? You probably have your own opinion on this question, and whatever it is, if it’s right for you I won’t disagree with it.

Anyway, I’m reading the Spencer W Kimball lessons out of order and read this one this morning:

http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b3bc55cbf541229058520974e44916a0/?vgnextoid=da135f74db46c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=9629862384d20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1&contentLocale=0


I found it very disturbing. Not so much because it isn’t true. For all I know it may be true, and I am disturbed because I have wandered too far from the undeviating course leading to eternal life.

No, I read this and was disturbed, because I knew I was dead. I think President Kimball makes it quite plain that my salvation is in my hands. Faith alone won’t save me. Ordinances won’t save me. My church membership won’t save me. The only thing that will save me is a constant and diligent attempt to perfect myself. This life is a real-world game of “Survivor”, and only a few will make it to eternal life, those with the knowledge of the restored gospel who make all the correct choices.

"The Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Savior, has given us our map—a code of laws and commandments whereby we might attain perfection and, eventually, godhood. This set of laws and ordinances is known as the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is the only plan which will exalt mankind. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the sole repository of this priceless program in its fulness, which is made available to those who accept it."

"The treasure house of happiness is unlocked to those who live the gospel of Jesus Christ in its purity and simplicity. … The assurance of supreme happiness, the certainty of a successful life here and of exaltation and eternal life hereafter, come to those who plan to live their lives in complete harmony with the gospel of Jesus Christ—and then consistently follow the course they have set."

“We are deeply grateful that we have his definite promise that where there has been sin and error, they can be followed by sincere and sufficient repentance that will in turn be rewarded with forgiveness.”

“The glorious thing about the whole matter of repentance is that the scriptures are as full of the Lord’s assurances that he will forgive as they are full of his commands for us to repent, to change our lives and bring them into full conformity with his wonderful teachings.”

“Why will only a few reach exaltation in the celestial kingdom? Not because it was not available to them, not because they did not know of its availability, not because the testimony was not given to them, but because they would not put forth the effort to pattern their lives and make them like the Savior’s life and establish them so well that there would be no deviation until the end.”

Of course I can repent, but in my case repentance is like bailing out a leaky rowboat with a teaspoon. I can’t repent fast enough to keep up. I’m short-tempered and self-centered at times. Times? Like when the second hand on the clock is moving. I provoked a fight with my wife last night just asking what time she wanted to leave for church and trying to take her car out to fill it with gas for her. That phrase "sufficient repentance catches me up. We are taught that true repentance means to forsake the sin and turn away from it. Returning to the sin is evidence that repentance wasn't sufficient. We are commanded to change our lives in "full conformity" to his teachings. I've been trying for 23 years, and I still can't do it. At the pace I am going I would need to live to be 300 to get even close, and I don't have it in me.

No, if I have to do this on my own effort, I am lost indeed. Jesus may have marked the path and showed the way, but I am buffeted about too much by my own short-comings to be able to reach the gate and enter in to his rest.

I was actually planning to attend my ward today, but after this message I couldn’t. Attending my ward would have been like throwing two more cinderblocks to someone who was already drowning. I went to our Episcopal church instead, where one of our readings was this:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%203:3-14;&version=31;

Imagine this. Even Paul, the super-righteous Pharisee, wasn’t good enough based on the law. He felt what qualified him was his faith and his willingness to share Jesus’ suffering and to press on. Maybe I can do that. Maybe I can throw myself on the grace of God and rely on Christ’s merits, and so win the prize and eternal life.

For those who can be like President Kimball and do it on their own, I’m happy for them, much as I glory in the successes of athletes in the Olympics. For the rest of us, thank goodness we have Jesus.

Worldwide Training –
I need to say in advance that if you’re not LDS much of this is probably going to go over your head, because you don’t have the cultural context to understand it.

This is going to seem like a lot of rambling, but I promise it all ties together at the end. Trust me on this.

It’s been an interesting few weeks. This year Wife of Bath and I have been on the “one Sunday a Month” plan in our ward. Otherwise we have attended our Episcopal church. One Sunday we played hooky because we just needed to talk more than we needed to be in church. So most of my exposure to the LDS church has been either the Ensign, conference talks, or the DAMU (aka the Disaffected Mormon Universe).

In general the Ensign has made me mad as hell.

I’ve been reading in the New Testament with a new enthusiasm, starting in 1 & 2 Thessalonians and James, because they appear to be the oldest books. I have developed a real love affair with coffee over the last month, because I have been trying to quit drinking so much soda and was looking for a caffeine replacement so I didn’t get headaches. Caffeinated coffee and scripture study are a marriage made in heaven. In the mornings I get a lift, a sense of focus, and a general sense of well-being from a freshly brewed cup of coffee that I spend the rest of the day looking forward to. The writings of the New Testament are elegant in their subtlety, inspiring us to faith while at the same time reminding us of the perils of falling back into putting our own wants (i.e. sin) ahead of a simple love of God.

On the other hand the Ensign and most conference talks are extremely simplistic “gumball” theology. It’s all about you and your choices. God punishes disobedience. God rewards obedience. Sacrifice brings the blessings of heaven. Worthiness brings the influence of the spirit. Unworthiness drives it away. Just one absolute statement after another. Good or evil. Obedience or disobedience. Worthy or not worthy. The funny thing is that experience teaches us that real life is not really like that. Most situations are shades of gray in which both elements of good and bad may be found. God’s will is not always our immediate happiness, and the spirit doesn’t always flick on and off like a light switch based on our most recent choice. Good behavior is not always rewarded in the way we might expect, and bad behavior is not always punished in the way we might expect. That’s why they call it “faith”. We don’t usually get that kind of “red light” “green light” feedback.

The Ensign makes me mad as hell lately because this kind of oversimplification just confuses people and guilts them out. It forces them into a great deal of stress trying to convince themselves that what their mind tells them must be true because of what the Ensign says and what their eyes and actual experience show them are actually happening are actually in agreement. In the physical world this type of experience produces motion sickness. The eye says “I’m not moving”, and the inner ear says, “yes you are”, and vomiting results. The Ensign may affect some people this way also.

In the meantime I have been listening to the Richard Bushman podcasts on www.mormonstories.org, and it has been fascinating. I have learned less about Joseph Smith and much much more about how someone like Richard Bushman, who knows more about Joseph Smith than any anti-mormon alive, manages to maintain his sanity, let alone his faith. In summary I believe Bushman manages to maintain his faith because he sees the church at many levels. His foundation is a feeling that the church is a force for good, and that is solid granite. Built on top of that is his historian’s training, which teaches that facts can often be assembled into more than one story, depending on the bias of the teller, and all tellers are biased. There’s no such thing as an absolutely true interpretation of history, because even eyewitnesses to the same event may differ on what actually happened. I don’t think he really takes the history of the church as seriously as he takes his basic belief that the church is a force for good. Whether or not Joseph Smith used seerstones, propositioned 14 year-olds by promising their parents eternal security, actually translated the Book of Mormon from any sort of plates, whether the three witnesses actually physically saw anything, etc., is just not important relative to that foundational truth that the church is a force for good.

Likewise his understanding that the official church history is more of a public relations effort than an attempt at real history. It just seems obvious that the church has to tell it in such a way that it doesn’t shatter the faith of the members, while at the same time not going so far afield that people are shocked by some of the actual details.

Fast-forward to yesterday.

I attended the Worldwide Training meeting broadcast by satellite from Salt Lake City at our stake center.

The subject was basically on teaching, primarily in the classroom setting, but also in the home.

It consisted of three basic parts: a “conversation” between Elders Packer and Perry, a generally unscripted teaching demonstration by Elder Holland, and a wrapup talk by President Monson.

I thought the unscripted class part with Elder Holland was the most effective training coming from church headquarters that I have ever seen. He had a "class" assembled of about 15 people, some GAs, some in the auxiliary presidencies, and a few younger folks who I guess are from the area, work in the office building, etc.. He taught them a class on teaching, basically by example. Here's an "apostle of the Lord" up there, yet he got the class to answer most of the questions, encouraged them, brought out people who weren't saying much. Members of the class challenged him a little on some points and sisters from the presidencies actually admitted *they didn't know things* and asked for real answers to their questions. He didn't say one thing I remember about obedience, modern prophets, etc.. His basic message was communicating the love of Christ to our classes by the spirit. He cried a few times during his lesson, and I did too. One thing he said that broke him up while he said it was, "if you can't teach them, at least show them you love them, and maybe you'll be able to teach them later", referring to difficult students.

By contrast President Monson gave the closing speech, a typical scripted rehash of stories we've all heard before, standing behind the podium in the conference center reading from the teleprompter.

On one hand you have Holland living on the edge (so to speak) and trusting the spirit in front of a worldwide audience. On the other hand there's Monson, afraid to turn loose of the old forty year old formula and share a little bit of himself.

In trying to bring all of these experiences together, I realized that to a large extent the church is what you want it to be. To another extent it resembles an onion with many layers. Bushman makes a similar point. If you want to believe in modern prophets and that God has an orderly plan for the universe, you’ll probably believe in the Book of Mormon. If you don’t, you won’t. He explicitly said that the facts by themselves don’t draw you absolutely to one conclusion or the other.

I believe Elder Holland was speaking to a mature audience, and as such assumed we could handle a certain sense of unscriptedness about not only him, but the luminaries in his “class”. In order to invite the spirit he had to take some risks and abandon some structure and allow us to see a more personal side of not only him, but his class. He spoke quickly and animatedly, jumping from one thing to another, a restless intelligence. Julie Beck seemed a little slow, like she had had some kind of brain trauma at some point. Kathleen Hughes broke down and cried during Elder Holland’s summary. They were real people, just like us, with emotions and questions and imperfections.

On the other hand, President Monson obviously felt that the men and women of experience and maturity in the worldwide audience were not ready for that kind of informality. What we needed was an authority figure behind a lectern reading simple and easily understood platitudes.

In general the LDS church is trying to present a very complex and subtle organization and doctrine in simple, easy to understand ways. It does that by dumbing down the doctrine and the history. The idea is that this works fine for most people and is very soothing and comforting. Eventually some people break out of that level, much like finding out that the stars we see above are really just a painting on the ceiling, and we break through the shell and find something else beyond. I think most leaders at the bishopric level and above have broken through that ceiling. They know the leaders are just people, sacrifice doesn’t always bring forth the blessings of heaven, maybe Joseph Smith had a little drinky once in awhile and cast an approving glance on a fine specimen of womanhood, but fundamentally they’re going to perpetuate the simple story the general membership and the public can understand and not confuse them with details.

I guess maybe the realization I came to is that the leaders don’t really believe the simple story, any more than we believe that Primary lessons encapsulate the entire gospel. They can sit through dumbed down Gospel Doctrine lessons, seminary lessons, and priesthood/relief society lessons, knowing that there’s a deeper truth out there because they’ve found it on their own. Since they don’t believe it, maybe it’s OK for us to not believe it either and not feel somehow unfaithful, apostate, or somehow morally wrong.

Put another way the church teaches a very simplistic view of Sabbath observance, with stories about Joseph Fielding Smith walking past a corner grocery store to patronize one that was closed on Sundays. Yet really the General Authorities don’t believe this, because they eat in restaurants when traveling away from home on church business on Sundays, and many church-owned businesses function on Sundays. They are more than happy to have people standing by to collect offering reports on Sundays, the church websites will take orders on Sundays, etc.. They teach something simple the members can understand, yet practice something much more nuanced. They have broken through that painted ceiling, so maybe we can too.

What church do you want to believe in? The one where a 14 year-old boy went into the woods to pray and saw two personages, or the one where a boy somewhere between 14 and 16 may have had a spiritual experience that evolved as he grew older and his understanding grew and what he was trying to communicate evolved?

What church do you want to believe in? The church where God always answers the prayers of the faithful and punishes the wicked, or the one where sometimes children of full tithepayers get cancer or fall into swimming pools and drown while their parents are distracted.

What church do you want to believe in? The one where modern prophets speak to God and will never lead the church astray, or the one where they pray and sometimes get answers, and other times are completely fooled by document forgers just to remind them that they are only reflectors of divine light and not the sources.

The thing is, it’s all the same church, and you have a choice as to which view to use, just like the General Authorities do. You can either view what’s put in front of you, or you can break through the painted ceiling and see what the real immensity of the universe looks like, unscripted and unpredictable in all its glory.

It’s OK to sit through a lesson on Jesus choosing the original apostles that morphs into “follow the current leaders and you’ll be blessed”, like I did today. Or a priesthood lesson on the Atonement that tells us that all we have to do for God to love us is to keep the commandments (except if we could do that, why would we need the atonement?) The leaders know these things aren’t completely true, and it doesn’t bother them. It’s OK to break through and see the truth. It’s OK to stay where it’s safe and simple. Ultimately it’s up to you which view you want. Either is OK.