Central to the Church

Members of the LDS Church feel a certain pride stating that the temple is central to their worship or that it's the focus of their worship. The idea is that the temple is without a doubt what Mormonism is all about. It's the cream of the crop. The delicious white fruit from Lehi's dream. It's our end goal as mortal beings. 

White, delightsome and ready for baptism or whatever.

The funny thing is that it's nowhere near as central as your meeting house. Have you ever considered how odd it is that you're supposed to go to church every Sunday without fail in order to partake of the sacrament, but how you only have to get to the temple to take out your endowment once? Doesn't that suggest that the baptismal covenants are more greatly emphasized in deed if not in word?

This happens in front of all your LDS neighbors. Who knows 

who you'll recognize in the temple.

Consider the fact that Sunday worship is not at all casual. You have a specific day of the week designated for you by the Lord Jehovah himself and a precise time you must come and worship. Your attendance is recorded. They're literally counting you in sacrament meeting and you sign rolls in your other Sunday meetings. Sunday is not to be taken lightly at all. Don't mow your lawn. Don't confess to watching professional sports. You have to keep Sunday "holy".

 Because 3 hrs of this in one day isn't enough.

Contrast Sunday worship to days of temple worship. You can go whenever it's convenient during the temple's hours of operation (just check the schedule if you want to do an endowment session). You can choose your activity: baptisms and confirmations, washings and anointings, an endowment or sealings. You can go right after work if that's convenient, you can play sports afterward, you can go to the movies or play your favorite violent video game. There are no restrictions on your day whatsoever. The impression I get is that the temple is very much extracurricular for members.

"We're going to the mall for burgers and ice cream after this! Yay!"

You can argue that going to the temple is essential for salvation. That's what the Church tells us, anyway. But if it is, you only have to go one for yourself. That will fill your quota. Not so with baptism. After you're baptized you have to take the sacrament every week and make the same covenant with God over and over.

What do you think? Both are said to be essential but which is more central, baptism and the sacrament or temple worship? Doubters like me can rarely tell.

Mormonism has 'the' answers

Growing up in the LDS Church I was taught very early on that we had the answers to all the big questions. You know the ones I'm talking about - THE big ones:

1. Who am I?
2. Where do I come from?
3. Why am I here?
4. Where am I going?

For those of you who aren't LDS or have somehow forgotten the answers, they're simple:

1. You are a literal spirit child of the Everlasting God! who loves you and has a Plan for you!
2. You came from God's presence...
3. to be born into a physical body and prove your faithfulness to God by living according to His desires and commandments.
4. Sometime after your physical death your body will be made immortal and reunited with your spirit. Then you will be judged and assigned to your eternal kingdom - a brilliant and golden sun, silvery moon, a tiny wink of bronze or the cold obsolete of pure darkness.

I have no doubt that these answers have lifted the fog of existential confusion from your heart and mind and you're now ready to move forward in life with undaunted assurance of God's love and your place in the Universe. Please contact your local LDS missionaries for further light and knowledge.

Hang on. A big blond family? You guys have to be Mormon already.

No? That's strange, usually the Spirit confirms these words of truth in the hearts of the sincere. This is a bad sign. You might be a two-faced piece of shit destined for Outer Darkness. Believe me, the above answers all make perfect sense when you grow up hearing them every week in church.

Repeat it enough and hopefully it will become second nature.

So what seems to be the problem? Are you maybe wondering what a god is and how he procreates to produce literal spirit children? Maybe you don't quite understand what a spirit is. Or maybe you're skeptical of how this information came to our knowledge in the first place. If this is the case, we can tell you that God has a body of flesh and bone (but not blood for some reason); that he has sex (a lot) with a goddess (or two) that we're not allowed to speculate on or talk about; that a spirit is eternal (but only after conception or birth or something) and, believe it or not, physical somehow (but we don't know how and don't know any specifics); and that we got all of this from a very reliable source named Joseph Smith. It doesn't get any clearer or logical than that!

On to where we come from, you might be wondering where God is. That answer is easy: Kolob! Where's Kolob? Um... we don't need to know that, actually. Why should anyone believe God has a physically restricted presence? Because Joseph Smith said so, duh! Is this star or planet named Kolob found within our Universe? Probably. Why wouldn't God reside outside of Creation? Why is he summer homing on a planet he made? Um... It's nice there. Hm...

The important thing is the present though. What you do right now in this life is crucial! You've got to let God know you're on his side! Because he doesn't already know if we are or not? No, because, well, we can switch sides at any time, you know? Because... Satan! But doesn't God know the future already? Doesn't he know if we'll one day succumb to Satan and forsake him? ...Well, sure, probably, but we don't know that. We fricking fought a war with Satan and his followers while still in the presence of God about whether or not we'd follow God's Plan which was to let us live mortal lives in general ignorance. We chose the Plan, that's why we're here enjoying our bodies and all the rebellious spirits, like Satan, will never get a body. Wait! You're saying we already chose to follow God and helped him conquer Satan before we were born? Definitely! So how the hell does God not already know that we chose to follow him? Why are we taking a second fidelity test? Does God not trust those who fought for him? Hey, whoa! Not so fast! That wasn't a real test because it didn't involve faith! No? No, we were living with God, so we had a perfect knowledge of him, not faith in him. We had to be born on earth to learn to develop faith. Why? Because that's the way God likes it. Oh dear god.

Hey, man, how's God going to know whether or not you deserve gold? Because he knows everything already and because I helped him fight off Satan. No, but God has to judge your faith in Him! Which wasn't required when I chose to fight a war for him? Nope. So why did other spirits fight with Satan if they knew God would win? They were just stupid assholes, man. Ah, obviously. So tell me about this super-sunny, magically awesome kingdom. What's so great about it? Yes! Now we're talking! The Celestial Kingdom is the best! You get to live with God forever and YOUR WHOLE FAMILY! Why would I want that? Is God really funny or something? Does it matter that no one in my family would ever believe anything you're telling me here? Will my brother still be a wife-beating dick? You don't understand! Remember how we're all God's literal offspring? Well, the Celestial Kingdom is where we grow up to be full-blown gods! We will make worlds and universes and have billions or trillions or more babies (think how much sex that is!)! We'll have tons of power and glory and love and it'll be so great FOREVER! Uh, yeah, no thanks. Bye!

Sex changes - handsome and chaste

General authorities have a lot to say about the innate qualities of women and their divinely appointed role here on earth. What happens if we flip the sexes in what they have to say about the topic? Do we have a nonsensical statement because the logic is gender dependent, or do we end up with a statement that still agrees with LDS thought because gender is irrelevant?

"The true spirit of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gives to man the highest place of honor in human life. To maintain and to merit this high dignity he must possess those virtues which have always, and which will ever demand the respect and love of mankind... [because] 'a handsome and chaste man is the perfect workmanship of God.'" First Presidency of Heber J. Grant, Improvment Era, May 1935, 276.

 The original quote was already plenty condescending to women, but readdressing it to men makes it feel strangely empowering for sexy men who won't give it up. The message makes just as much doctrinal sense maled so I'm going to have to call bullshit on brother Heber. Men do indeed get the highest place of honor in the LDS Church; Mormons are all about being virtuous, lovely, of good report and praiseworthy; and who's to argue that God really gets off on handsome, chaste men?

Sex changes - "become great men"

General authorities have a lot to say about the innate qualities of women and their divinely appointed role here on earth. What happens if we flip the sexes in what they have to say about the topic? Do we have a nonsensical statement because the logic is gender dependent, or do we end up with a statement that still agrees with LDS thought because gender is irrelevant?

"Cultivate and employ generously your noble, manly instincts of care and mercy, first to your family and then to others. May you always hunger and thirst after righteousness within the framework of the revealed gospel of Jesus Christ. May you have an eternal perspective as you go about your angelic cause of doing good so that it will not only lead you to become great men but ultimately to become kings in the eternities." James E. Faust, "How Near to the Angels," New Era, Mar, 1999, 4.

This quote also seems to work just fine when addressing men instead of women. Talk of being caring and merciful might get us thinking about women but it's more likely to get us thinking about Heavenly Father and Jesus, and just as likely to bring to mind our father or grandfathers or even a friend who's a man. Womanliness or femaleness has little, if anything, to do with care and mercy. The other potential clue that the Faust here is talking about women and not men is his reference to "your angelic cause." I would dare say that we typically associate angels and the adjective "angelic" with women,

and yet all the angels mentioned in scripture (with the exception of two possibly evil stork-winged women bearing a woman representing wickedness off to Babylon) are men. No female angels, isn't that interesting? It would very much appear that angelic causes are male causes.

I'm starting to think James Faust was completely off base addressing these thoughts to women.

Wife #1

We typically place Emma Hale at the top of the long chain of Joseph Smith's wives because she was his first and only legal wife. However we need to keep in mind that today in LDS culture the first sealing indicates who the primary celestial spouse is. In the case of Emma and Joseph, they were not sealed until May 28, 1843 which means Emma is not wife #1 - she's something like wife #27. That's right, Joseph was sealed to well over twenty women before he was ever sealed to his dear Emma. WTF?

Polygamy - empty explanations

In addition to God needing believing babies, the early saint's apparently needed learn some shit the hard way.

Church leaders taught that participants in plural marriages should seek to develop a generous spirit of unselfishness and the pure love of Christ for everyone involved. (See here.)

Why was polygamy the preferred didactic method for teaching "the pure love of Christ"? I have no clue. Back in Jesus' day his approach was telling people to give all they had to the poor and not judging and stuff like that. The Church seems to be suggesting that God doesn't really care or want us to understand his motives.

Like the participants, we “see through a glass, darkly” and are asked to walk by faith. (See here.)

The only real important thing is that we believe God will give us something for our efforts:

They believed it was a commandment of God at that time and that obedience would bring great blessings to them and their posterity. (See here.)

We view our current polygamous practices the same way.

[T]he Church permits a man whose wife has died to be sealed to another woman when he remarries. Moreover, members are permitted to perform ordinances on behalf of deceased men and women who married more than once on earth, sealing them to all of the spouses to whom they were legally married. The precise nature of these relationships in the next life is not known, and many family relationships will be sorted out in the life to come. (See here.)

In other words, we don't know what the fuck we're doing or why exactly we're doing it, but we trust it's from God and we trust that he'll sort all this shit out even though it's absolutely absurd. Considering all the sealing combinations we've tried out (and the probability that many of those sealed souls won't even make it to Celestial glory), it's safe to say the tapestry of eternal families we've woven will look something like this:

Keeping sealing, dear Saints, but whatever you do do not stop to consider the idea that Joseph Smith made this all up so he could take advantage of several women (and girls).

Celestial bodies

Here are a couple more thoughts about celestial resurrection and eternal perfection. If we get back every hair on our head, does that mean we get back every hair of our back, or our belly, or of our legs, or bikini line? Will we have super smelling powers? Will we be able to smell everyone's sweaty, hairy bodies? Will we ever have to deal with any physical discomfort again? For example, does God ever get anything in his eye? Sand? Pollen? Dust? I know he's not supposed to be vulnerable to physical danger or harm, but what's going on with his eyes? Does he have cherubim with flaming swords fighting off stray particles? Is the surface of his body somehow repellent to everything? Are celestial beings ticklish, or is that an earthly frailty?

Eternal progression

Like so many other aspects of Mormonism, eternal progression was one of those things that sounded great on the surface but got weird enough fast enough that I had to stop thinking about it. I've already brought up the conundrum of eternal learning in another post. We don't know how we're going to learn everything in the Universe, but we have faith that we will. And after we've become all-knowing beings, just like God, we'll be fully progressed and ready to build our own perfect universes, right? Who knows?

The real problem here is that once we've become like God, who is perfect (complete) in all things, what progression is left to be had?

The idea that had been conveyed to me was that because saving human beings is God's work and glory, the more people get saved the more glory God gets. So, in a sense, God, despite his perfection-completion, is somehow becoming ever more glorious by making us, his children, like him, and when we, in our perfect, completed state, make and populate our own worlds, and save the human inhabitants of those worlds, we will be not just adding glory to our own perfect selves but also to God's glory because we wouldn't be saving anyone had he not saved us first, so really everyone we saved was saved by God. Then when the humans we save become like us (and God) and start saving their own human children the glory still goes straight back to God to glorify him all the more.

In other words, eternal progression is equivalent to the endless perpetuation of God's salvation scheme. The more people you bring into the club the more respected you'll be. The more obedient children you have the more impressive you look to your neighbors.

Pyramid scheme? No way! This is a sacred law of the Universe.

Heavenly fatherliness #41 - Risking personal safety

According to popular wisdom, a good father will put his own safety on the line to keep children out of harm's way.

This is another attribute Heavenly Father doesn't get points for. How could he? His personal safety is never ever at risk. Ever. He's immortal and resides in the safety of perfection - he cannot in any way risk his safety, even should he want to.

However, he does let his children suffer every day and die horribly every day for no apparent reason. And he will let a good many of them live throughout the eternities alienated from him forever. The truth about the Gospel according to Mormonism is that we, God's children, are the ones risking everything. If we decide not to obey him for some reason, we're screwed.

For me, it's impossible not to doubt Heavenly Father's love and devotion to us.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness - Is Heavenly Father a good father?

All of my life I was told that God, in addition to being Ruler of the Universe, was also my dad. I was not a mere creation God takes casual interest in, nor could I be compared to an abandoned puppy or a stranger taken under the wing a loving being - I was one of God’s spiritual sons who agreed to be born to earthly parents, live a life of absolute dedication to my Heavenly Father, and then hopefully return to live with him in complete Celestial Glory. I was taught that I could completely trust in God even more than I could trust my earthly father (who fortunately for me turned out to be a very caring and responsible guy) because, while my earthly father would be imperfect, have a limited knowledge and understanding of the Universe, and be only as powerful as your slightly above average human, my Heavenly Father is perfect, omniscient, and omnipotent. So in a nutshell, however much my biological dad wishes for my success and happiness, Heavenly Father wishes for it infinitely more and actually has the power to make me truly and totally happy. True and total happiness, this is the first thing Mormons will explain to you when you ask them what the meaning of life is, but millions of others have grown up viewing life under this same premise and billions more have heard similar conjectures. God is our father and he loves us. He is on our side and chooses to help us. God cares for us just as a father cares for his children. 

Viewing God as a father suggests that we can understand to some extent the thoughts and feelings that motivate his interactions with human beings. And when life gets hard and we start to feel picked on a little too much, viewing God as a knowing and loving father helps us reach the conclusion that everything will be alright and we just have keep trusting in him.

I used to cherish my “divine parentage” with only occasionally acknowledging the problems underlying the Heavenly Father narrative. Even after outgrowing the Mormon faith tradition I would at times revisit the idea that God is somehow the father of humanity and what that would mean for our expectations of God’s behavior toward us. As believers we impose expectations on God. Jesus, for example, taught that human fathers know how to give better gifts than stones, snakes, and scorpions and Heavenly Father knows how to give even better gifts (Matt. 7:9-11; Luke 11:11-13), and consequently we actually expect God to answer, open, and give when we seek, knock, and ask (Matt. 7:7-8; Luke 11:9-10).

This series will touch on a number of characteristics and behaviors of a good father. These attributes represent the popularized (and popularizing) thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father all distilled into the most concise bullet points possible. What makes these authors or their publishers reliable authorities on fatherhood has simply been decided by Google Search. 

Please share your thoughts, unless, of course, you're an asshole.

God and the Golden Rule

GOD DOES NOT TREAT PEOPLE AS HE WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED. He doesn't treat them how they would like to be treated either. Basically God just dumps on people a whole lot and throws us a bone from time to time. But the Mormon promise is that he will treat us as equals someday if we're good enough to deserve it. Well, kind of. He'll still be our dad and demand total reverence and obedience to his rules. Good enough, right?

Fanny Young Murray (Smith) - wife #36

Fanny Young (November 8, 1787 - June 11, 1859) was Brigham Young's older sister. She took on much of the responsibility for raising her younger siblings after her mother died in 1815. She was also close to the Kimball family and young Helen referred to her as Aunt Fanny.

Fanny married Heber Kimball's father-in-law, Roswell Murray, in 1832, the same year she and other members of the Young family joined the Church. Roswell, however, did not join, but he still moved with the saints to Kirtland, Missouri, and then Nauvoo, where he fell ill and died in 1839.

Fanny's marriage to Joseph Smith was extremely abrupt. She found herself disagreeing with Brigham and Joseph in a conversation about the necessity of plural marriage in order to reach the highest glory of the Celestial Kingdom, and Joseph rebutted her expressed desire to simply be an administering angel with "you talk very foolishly, you do not know what you will want" and followed that up by having Brigham seal her to him then and there.

To me the story reads as an example of how Joseph liked to flash his prophetic mantle and shoot to close the sale quickly. Fanny's marriage to the prophet comes across as yet another example of how Joseph was good at pressuring people to reassert himself and get what he wanted.

Unlike many of the other plural wives, Fanny was not resealed to Joseph in the Nauvoo temple following his murder.

Rhoda Richards (Smith) Young - wife #30

Rhoda Richards (August 8, 1784 - January 17, 1879) makes 30 known wives for Joseph Smith by mid-June of 1843, barely a year before he would be killed. Thirty wives, people! Rhoda was nearly sixty when she married Joseph, but other wives were as young as fourteen. Joseph was having sex with a good number of these plural wives.

Age is no obstacle. Never has been.

Rhoda's brother Willard was one of Joseph's main marrying men, so perhaps it isn't too strange that she would end up married to the prophet. She was also Brigham Young's first cousin, so obviously she was well connected to the sacred inner circle of Nauvoo Mormonism.

Brother Will.

Years before becoming an old polygamous wife, Rhoda was engaged to a man named Ebenezer Damon. He was known as a good man. He had a young daughter named Susan from a previous marriage and Rhoda grew very fond of her. Unfortunately Ebenezer died young. Rhoda, who was still in her twenties at the time, was, of course, devastated. Ebenezer's death weighed heavily on her for the decades to come.

Rhoda joined the Church in the mid-1830 via Brigham Young. She moved to Nauvoo in 1842. In Nauvoo she finally met Joseph, and the following year her brother married her to Joseph in an act she seems to have understood as confirming her spot in heaven.

After Joseph was killed Rhoda married her cousin Brigham. She moved to Utah with the Brighamite saints to live out the remainder of her life.

Sarah Ann Whitney (Smith) Kingsbury Kimball - wife #16

Sarah Whitney (March 22, 1825 - September 4, 1873) was only seventeen when her father, Newel K. Whitney, officiated her marriage to Joseph Smith. Newel, who was a close friend of Joseph, was even given a revelation (through Joseph, naturally) that this marriage was a wonderful idea - it would bring earthly blessings and seal the Whitney family's place in the Celestial Kingdom!

Let me emphasize this point: Newel and his wife Elizabeth secretly married their eldest (but still teenaged) daughter to a man 20 years her senior in exchange for a golden ticket to heaven.

People, if this sounds like a huge, manipulative con to you, let me say right now that there's nothing wrong with you. This arrangement looks shady and disgusting, and don't you doubt it!

It gets even shadier still. In mid-August Joseph, hiding from the law, tells Sarah and her parents that it is "the will of God that you should comfort me now" only to follow up with a warning to watch out for Emma, who, according Joseph, was dangerous. Joseph, on the other hand, was just a sick bastard (but at least he followed the divine mandate to marry a virgin).

The shadiness of this arrangement continues. Joseph then arranged a faux-marriage between Sarah and Joseph Kingsbury. I can only assume this was so it would be easier for Joseph to drop by on Sarah without creating suspicion. Very classy stuff. Very holy.

Joseph was killed less than two years later, at which point Sarah's marriage to Kingbury was disolved and Sarah went on to marry Heber Kimball, with whom she had seven children: David, David Orson, David Heber, Newel, Horace, Sarah, and Joshua. Her life ended in Utah before the age of 50.

Words that mean everything and nothing

Mormons believe that essentially everyone will make it to heaven, but heaven is not created equally. In fact, there isn't just one heaven, there are three, each with its own degree of glory. The highest heaven is the Celestial Kingdom, which is typically compared to the glory of the Sun; the middle kingdom is the Terrestrial Kingdom, which is typically compared to the glory of the moon; and the lowest glory, compared to the brilliance of the stars, is the Telestial Kingdom.

Let's not get too caught up with the fact that this sun, moon, stars hierarchy does not reflect the actual height or distance of these heavenly bodies from the earth (otherwise the stars like Kolob would be our heavenly goal and the moon would be the lowliest of all glories), the comparison relies more on the amount of light given off with respect to our position. Fine.

What's most bizarre and most doubt-inducing for me is the etymology of the kingdoms' names. Calling something celestial means that thing is either like or somehow pertaining to the sky. That works great for the Celestial Kingdom as long as you still believe in the idea of the Firmament and God living in the clouds, otherwise you get stuck trying to reconcile the description of Kolob with current science.

The moon, as it turns out, is a horrible symbol for a place called the Terrestrial Kingdom. Terra means earth in Latin. If you want the moon, call it the Lunar Kingdom. Anyway, just how exactly is the Terrestrial Kingdom supposed to be like or pertaining to the earth? I thought even the lowest degree of glory was supposed to blow our puny earthing minds.

The least glorious heavenly realm is special enough to get a made up name. Telestial, like curelom and cumom, didn't exist as a word until Joseph Smith revealed it to us. The word seems to come from tele-, which is a Greek prefix for distant or far away, but it could also be going back farther to the root teleos, which means the end goal of a completed cycle, so basically the idea of perfecting a circle. If we go with the first possibility we get the notion that the Telestial Kingdom is the "Far Away Kingdom." Far from what? God? Hopefully not too far. If we go with the latter option, the Telestial Kingdom would seem to mean it's the designated end of the Plan of Salvation, but we all know that's not the case - the Celestial Kingdom is where we want to be. Maybe God should have given us his divine Adamic names for these places instead of misleading us with Latin and Greek.

It's pretty confusing. The meanings and explanations of these kingdoms come across as poorly thought out. And don't go to the temple hoping to sort things out. Take the rooms of the Salt Lake temple for example. You have the Creation [of the earth] Room, Garden [of Eden, which is on Earth] Room, World [a.k.a. Earth] Room, Terrestrial [= of the earth] Room, and the Celestial [heavens/sky/clouds] room. Why are there so many rooms for the same place? Why is there no discussion of the Telestial and Terrestrial Kingdoms in the temple, just a quick entrance through the veil into the Celestial realm? I thought the temple was where we go to learn the details of The Plan, but we're only given a partial view. So much for further light and knowledge!

Jesus on marriage

Mormons believe that beginning with the union of Adam and Eve marriage done God's way is for eternity. Eternal marriage has become Mormonism's favorite doctrine: FAMILIES CAN BE TOGETHER FOREVER!

Imagine the frustration of all the Mormons who try to learn of ancient marriage practices from the Old Testament, where "eternal" never enters the equation,

or the Book of Mormon,

or the New Testament, where three of the four gospel writers manage to relate the same marriage lesson without significantly contradicting each other. It's the story of the Sadducees asking Jesus about couples being together in the next life. Their question is facetious, but Jesus' response is shocking (if you're a Mormon who believes in eternal marriage).

"The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." (Matt. 22:23-30)

"Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven." (Mark 12:18-25)

"Then came to him certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection; and they asked him, Saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If any man’s brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. There were therefore seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and died without children. And the second took her to wife, and he died childless. And the third took her; and in like manner the seven also: and they left no children, and died. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife. And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage" (Luke 20:27-35)

Jesus makes it clear: the question is ridiculous because RESURRECTED PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE SPOUSES, they're like the angels. Once again, of the seven women the man married in life, Jesus says the man will have none of them in the resurrection. Zero. No eternal marriage, according to JC.

Other translations of the New Testament might help point out that "in the resurrection, they do not take wives, neither do men have wives," but probably the most important translation is the Joseph Smith Translation. Let's take a look.

"For in the resurrection, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angel of God in heaven." (JST Matt. 22:29)

"For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels of God who are in heaven." (JST Mark 12:29)

"But they who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, through resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage." (JST Luke 20:35)

Shit. Looks like Joseph wasn't inspired to have Jesus say something about how the man would only keep his first legitimate wife (take a look at 21-8 in the New Testament Institute Manual), or any of the others. For whatever reason, God wouldn't let his prophet foresee eternal matrimony in the early 1830s.

How disappointed will faithful Mormons be when they're resurrected as angels instead of their earthly families?

Jesus on divorce

It's very clear that Jesus would not be very happy with today's divorce practices.

"I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery." (Matt. 19:9)

JC says no divorce unless you've been cheated on and no marrying someone who's been divorced (because they're cheaters!).

I'm not sure who to doubt on this one. Do I doubt Jesus for wanting to force people to stay in unhappy relationships and for showing so little forgiveness to those who have been unfaithful to their spouse at some point? Or do I doubt the LDS Church for not following Jesus' teachings?

Divorce runs rampant in the LDS Church, just like it does in the rest of the Western World. I can't even begin to count the number of temple marriages of people I know personally that have ended in divorce - and not because of infidelity. A lot of those same people have been remarried. Is their married life a sin in Jesus' eyes? Do they not care about Jesus' words on the matter? Have they not read the New Testament? Is the Church in a sinful state for allowing divorce?

It seems the LDS Church might have created for itself a "comfortable" god and some "comfortable" doctrine, and we all know how apostle Jeff feels about that!

I don't know that we deny that

When, in the years following the King Follet Discourse, has eternal progression not been a central tenant of Mormonism, besides when Hinckley said it wasn't (or might not be) back in 1997? I know, I know, this topic has been run into the ground, but, hey, it's a classic moment of doubting a prophet and Mormon doctrine. I think everyone was taken aback when they read the interview.

I think it's a wonderful example of Hassan's distinction between insider and outsider doctrines. No casting pearls before swine. No milk before meat. No freaking out Christian America before getting them to respect our beliefs a bit.

Isn't that a little dishonest? Isn't it a little disconcerting to be lead by men who are okay with deception and denial? How do we feel about justifying that behavior for the sake of maintaining faith in those leaders?

Let love in

Mormons are taught early on that they want to be married in the temple. We've been taught that if someone can't or doesn't want to get married in the temple, we should kick their sorry ass to the curb.

George Durrant reported a conversation he had with his fifteen-year-old son. He had asked him, “Where are you going to get married?”

“In the temple,” was the reply.

“Why?”

“I’ve just never thought of getting married anywhere else.”

“Why?” the father pressed.

“Well, that’s where you go so you can be married forever.”

“But,” the father asked, “what if you meet a girl who doesn’t feel that the temple is that important?”

There was a long pause. Then he replied, “Dad, I wouldn’t marry her.”

I can just imagine the numerous conversations shared between Mormon couples in love when they discover that the temple has been eliminated from the equation. My heart swells at all the tear drenched "I'm sorry"s and the understanding "go fuck yourself, you unworthy pig"s that have sent eternal dreams summer-salting off the highway of holy love and into a cold gray ditch of empty Big Gulps and soggy cigarettes. Tragic.

Tragic, but necessary. We can't be placing love of another human over our love for Mormonism. Marriage is so much more. Some teachers of the youth even complain about the expression "marry in the temple" because they feel it makes light of the ordinance and prefer instead "to call the Lord’s way of marriage the 'sealing ordinance' or 'being sealed.'" This isn't just a marriage, it's a godly right of passage; this togetherness isn't simply for time, it's FOR ETERNITY.

Sealings are more than just some silly hoopla Mormons have added to their religion in attempts to legitimize polygamy or an attempt to create an analogous rite to the the highest sacrament of Catholicism, and anyone telling you otherwise is just speculating. The fact is that as much as God loves you, he can't respect your love unless you proved your commitment to him and your spouse at one of his alters. Period. God's house is a house of order (D&C 132:8), and there's nothing confusing or disorderly about making sure everyone on earth who loves him marries in his holy house. So don't worry about the guy who's sealed to three different women, all of whom learned to hate him deeply and divorced him; don't worry about if the atheist grandfather you vicariously sealed to your grandmother probably won't accept the ordinance but your grandma probably will; don't worry that Joseph Smith was sealed to 11 women who were already married to other Mormon leaders; don't worry about your brother who's sealed to an unfaithful woman who doesn't love or deserve him; don't worry about anything, it all makes sense to God.

And yet sometimes I can't help but think about how hard it can be for people to find love and how often the love they find lies outside of their religious culture. Sometimes I think about God being a completely loving and completely understanding father and just how his love and understanding might play out in the eternities. At times I think how strange it is that so many Mormon grandparents are convinced that all you need is a penis, a vagina, and two strong testimonies for a marriage to work. (It's almost as though Spencer Kimball said this: "it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price.) And maybe it is a little funny that Mormon kids think that they will conveniently find the person they will marry within their very limited ward boundaries.

Instead of pushing love away because temple requirements get in the way, wouldn't it be more respectful and loving in many cases to trust in God's love and celebrate the love a couple shares with each other? For many people life is too short and too hard to go it alone. It's also true that Mormonism can be very harsh on its single members. Can't God let his children embrace love and companionship as it presents itself without putting harsh parameters on who qualifies?