It's not hero worship, Fiona!

It seems Henry had some words for the Fiona Givens this past Sunday.

Our white knights serving and protecting.

Don’t take lightly the feeling you get of love for the prophet of God. Wherever I go in the Church, whoever the prophet is at the time, members will ask, “When you get back to Church headquarters, will you please tell the prophet how much we love him?” That is far more than hero worship or the feelings we sometimes have of admiring heroic figures. It is a gift from God.

I don't understand what Henry's saying here. I don't. What I think is happening hear is Henry's trying to correct the Church's best selling authors Terryl and Fiona Givens. He doesn't explain at all how he understands hero worship, what he thinks it means, what examples of it might be, whether or not it has a place in the LDS Church, etc., but, as you may know, Fiona is very concerned about the way Mormons revere their leaders. It doesn't seem Henry has any idea what she means by the term "hero worship". But who cares? Since when did prophets and apostles have to understand the lowly member? All they have to understand are the ways of God and all we have to understand is that love for the them is a gift from God (probably because the vast majority of Church members have never met them and never heard them speak outside of the context of the Church and they have no basis for their affection of these leaders), which must be good because God only gives really awesome gifts. 

Heavenly fatherliness #12 - Initiative to help

According to popular wisdom, a good father takes pity on his wife and children and takes the initiative to help them.

Once again we run into the issue of a Perfect, Infinite Being having the capacity to relate to and feel anything for such lowly creatures as man, but let's just pretend he does. The issue here then becomes whether or not God takes the initiative to help out.

You've maybe heard that God works many miracles among his children everyday for which we all should be amazingly humbled and grateful. Sounds totally legit, right? One quick look around and it's totally obvious that God's being a Big Help around here, isn't it? Maybe not. It seems he basically just uses us as miracle helper pawns. So is it God or is it us? For some there might not be a difference, I suppose.

Just consider that God doesn't want to just give his goods and services away, we at least have to ask first. The initiative, it would seem, is ours.

I'm pretty sure there are people the world over praying for a hand. Nonstop prayers all asking for a little recognition from an All-powerful Being, but once again whoever considers the extent of human suffering in the world - even in a single historical moment - or takes the time to recall the endless production of carcinogenic material all over the world will probably wonder where the hell God is. 

Oh wait! God already took care of our suffering souls when he killed Jesus... or let Jesus die... or let Jesus let himself die... or kill himself... or whatever that was. Can we clean things up Heavenly Father's way and just kill our firstborn children and then resurrect them again? It seems logical enough, right?

Heavenly Father's also got the whole environmental mess taken care of too. How could I be so silly? God's totally a helper.

*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.

Heavenly fatherliness #9 - Giving comfort

According to popular wisdom, a good father is the person his children turn to when things go wrong.

Mormons believe that God wants to truly and completely comfort us. Through the Holy Ghost, God's love can fill us and makes us better.

I agree that people who find themselves in horrible, terrifying, intimidating, and desperate situations tend to turn to God. "God, help me, no one else can!" I've been there, but I have serious doubts about the comfort I received. 

Plenty of people blame God for their hard times and turn away from Him. And plenty of people don't give two shits about God to begin with and learn to deal with their problems on their own or with actual living beings like their earth dad, other family, friends, pets, coworkers, therapists and therapy groups, etc.

We don't need "God" or a holy spook, we need each other.

*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. 

Full of what?

The Book of Mormon supposedly contains the "fulness of the Gospel," but what exactly does that mean? For apologists it tends to mean "the good tidings of Jesus' suffering for our sins and his conquering of death" (as though the Creator of the Universe hadn't already proven his power to give life!),  but I would argue that the term as it is actually used in the LDS Church means something more like "everything we need to know and do to reach the Celestial Kingdom where we will be with Heavenly Father and our eternal families." The second definition is encouraged every time the general Church authorities speak of "living the Gospel" and include a number of other doctrines, rites, and behaviors that have nothing to do with faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost. Besides, faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost are just the first four principles and ordinances, not the complete list.

Mormons know that living the Gospel fully means regular Church attendance, fulfilling service callings in the Church, paying tithing, and doing everything required in the temple, which just happens to include marriage sealings. The Family proclamation states that "Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan" which sounds a lot like the way we talk about faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost - the are essential. Not only that, having children and continued posterity, as it turns out, is definitely considered a key component to living the fullness of the Gospel. The Mormon Gospel is not merely that Christ made restitution and resurrection possible for all of us mortal sinners, it's the promise of eternal families who will progress together to godhood. This is the "good news" of Christ that the Church is selling.

Of course, you have to get this from the missionaries and other members exclusively because relying solely on The Book of Mormon will leave the Gospel of Mormonism feeling dated and void.

Tongues

Mormons believe in the gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues (Article of Faith 1:7), but not that crazy speaking in tongues stuff! Well, at least not anymore. That tongues of fire shit was so early 19th century!

This gift of the spirit has really wised up. Today it's all about speaking languages that other people use and live with every day. No more mystical chatter coming to you out of the blue. Now it's about studying vocabulary and grammar and careful memorization of set phrases for prayer or testimony sharing in, say, Spanish or Korean or Twi (and sometimes emoticons).

Never mind the fact that many missionaries return from foreign lands with really shitty language skills. Not everyone enjoys the same gifts. Never mind the fact that world travelers often have stories about being somewhere where they do not speak the language and yet they manage to perfectly and inexplicably experience a moment of clear communication and understanding with a local. The gifts of the Spirit can be enjoyed by all from time to time, like by infants who suddenly start speaking by about two years old. Then, of course, there's everyone else who learns various languages throughout their lives. All of that's through the Spirit.

You might be thinking "hey, the gifts of the Spirit typically come after someone has been given the Gift of the Holy Ghost!" Don't worry about it. All you need to know is that only Finnish babies and Mormon missionaries can learn Finnish, and that relentless study and over a year of living abroad can never produce the kind of gifts of tongues enjoyed by the missionaries. Now do yourself a favor and avoid discussing amazing moments of breaking the language barrier with anyone who's not Mormon.

The Apocalypse - a baptism by fire

In my study of the Bible I learned, thanks to the Church Institute manuals, that one reason why it was so important that the Earth literally be literally baptized by immersion by the Flood was because the Earth needed that ordinance in order to receive the Holy Ghost. This later ordinance would take place just before the Second Coming during the Apocalypse, when the entire Earth would be literally burned with fire and literally purified.

This information was a little hard to swallow for me. Really? The Apocalypse is the Refiner's fire? The entire world needs to burn LITERALLY, NOT SYMBOLICALLY? I swear I had never heard this silliness before in my life. Is it not obvious what a bad idea that would be? All that smoke and ash will be a very serious problem. Besides isn't it going to be bad enough with the Four Horsemen running around? Do we really need a global fire? Mormon's don't really believe this, right? At least not any more, I hope.

My baptism and confirmation

I can't believe I forgot to mention this before. I had no serious doubts going into my baptism. Even if my bishop had asked me my thoughts about the Creation and the Flood, I know my 8-year-old self would have shrugged the question off and pushed for baptism anyway. Not that I would have had to push, usually Mormon adults take care of all the required pushing.

I was told that I would feel the burden of my sins be lifted (which is odd considering Mormon doctrine teaches that we are incapable of sinning until we reach eight years old, the age of accountability), that I might possibly feel physically lighter, and that I would feel overwhelmed with God's love and know that I was accepted by Him. What I actually felt was quite different. I felt like it was over so fast that I didn't even know what happened. When I came out of the water I basically felt the same as before, just a little more embarrassed than usual because everyone was watching me and my underwear was probably showing through the wet white jump suit I was wearing. I felt hurried in the changing room and weird about the other boys and their fathers all changing together (I was raised a prude). I felt like I had missed something, but I was sure the good feelings were waiting for me around the corner. 

I also felt nervous that now everything I did could count against me. Everyone told me I would screw up and sin and it was bad but it was also okay because Jesus suffered and died for all our sins so we can repent, but keep in mind that repentance is hard and painful, so just don't screw up, okay? Okay.

Admittedly there was one more thing about my baptism that I wasn't too keen on. The font wasn't very cool. It was just the typical tiled box with stairs that you see above. What I really wanted was to get baptized in a natural body of water like Jesus in the River Jordan or all those converts in the Waters of Mormon. This baptism picture still kicks the shit out of any baptism I've ever seen.

My confirmation was very much the same experience. I had been told marvelous things about being confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and so I had a few expectations. I specifically expected to feel the Spirit come over me and confirm my decision to join the Church. I remember trying so hard to open up and tune in. I wanted to do it right. It was serious business. What I felt that Sunday morning was the nervousness of having all eyes on me and a sincere desire that the dudes confirming me would lift their hands a bit more because the weight of all their arms was making my neck tired. Please, dad, lay off a bit or wrap it up! Name a Jesus Christ AMEN!

The temple - baptisms for the dead

I had a doubt or two when I first did baptisms for the dead. I doubted I was worthy enough considering how much I thought about not thinking about how badly I wanted to see boobs, for example, but my main doubts came during or after the experience of being baptized "for and in behalf of" a deceased person. I had heard countless stories of people seeing the spirits of the dead hanging around waiting for you to get dunked only to scamper off like a puppy to play outside finally freed from Spirit Prison. Other's had said that you would maybe just feel the presence of the spirits, or maybe just the joy of relief that the spirits were feeling as they witnessed and accepted their baptism. Then again, maybe all you'd feel is the Joy of the Holy Ghost witnessing to you the truthfulness of "the work". I didn't feel any of it. 

So how did I feel? I felt worried that a temple worker would discern through the Spirit that I was unworthy to be there because I wanted to see boobs. I felt uncomfortable about my wet clothes clinging too tightly to my crotch and revealing my white Hanes briefs. I felt weird about the being essentially alone in a room with two men I didn't know as they conferred the Gift of the Holy Ghost on me on behalf of the people I had been baptized for. It wasn't a very spiritual experience for me (nor would it ever be despite fasting and praying and preparing each time I went), and I wasn't anxious to go back and do it again.

Despite all of that discomfort and doubt, I stuck it out for years. I went back various times throughout my teenage years to be baptized and confirmed for the dead. I doubted my doubts, but that didn't improve anything for me.