Gary Stevenson criticized

I think it's only fair that we take a look a the words of our newly called apostles. We all deserve to know just what exactly they can testify of. What witness can they give? Elder Stevenson's recent General Conference talk with my comments.

Dear brothers and sisters, it has been many decades since a general conference has been convened that President Boyd K. Packer and Elders L. Tom Perry and Richard G. Scott were not seated immediately behind the podium and speaking at one of these sessions. It's also been many decades that people have been hoping and praying that Boyd just fucking die already. That man was a monster. Our memories of them are poignant, and I add my tribute to honor them, each so uniquely different yet so harmonized in their witness and testimony of Jesus Christ and His Atonement. It's not too hard to harmonize when both their witnesses and the Atonement are complete mysteries. None of them ever claimed to have seen Jesus and none of them ever gave a satisfactory explanation of the Atonement.

Furthermore, I, like you, find strength in and sustain President Thomas S. Monson as prophet, seer, and revelator, and I marvel at his faithful and dutiful apostolic service spanning over 50 remarkable years. Like me? Never in my life have I been impressed with Monson's record as a prophet, seer or revelator (but it was rumored in the mission that he had a photographic memory and that impressed me).

And so it was on Tuesday morning of this week, just after 9:00 a.m. as the Bishopric was beginning a meeting with the Asia Area Presidency, who are here for conference, that I was called to meet with President Monson, along with his counselors. "And so it was"? Where did that come from? You weren't telling a story or any kind of narrative that calls for a "and so it was". Moments later, as I walked into the boardroom adjacent to his office, I must have looked nervous sitting across the table, as he kindly spoke to calm my nerves. It's nice to know Tommy remembered his manners considering he can remember so little these days. He commented, noting my age, that I seemed quite young and even looked younger than my age. This sentence is both horribly redundant and hardly information worthy of your audience. I hope you get better at telling stories real fast.

Then, within a few moments, President Monson described that acting on the will of the Lord, he was extending a call to the Quorum of the Twelve to me. How do we know he was acting on the will of the Lord? Was Jesus to busy to call his own "special witness"? He asked me if I would accept this call, to which, following what I am sure was a very undignified audible gasp, in complete shock, I responded affirmatively. "Guh! Wha? Really? You want me to back the Porche out of the garage? Wow! OK, sure!" Dude, Gary, where was your wife in all this? And then, before I could even verbalize a tsunami of indescribable emotion, most of which were feelings of inadequacy, President Monson kindly reached out to me, describing how he was called many years ago as an Apostle by President David O. McKay, at which time he too felt inadequate. But don't worry, you'll learn to fake the shit out of this whole apostle thing! And the pain of being a fraud fades fast. He calmly instructed me, “Bishop Stevenson, the Lord will qualify those whom He calls.” You'll soon find justifications for why your "special witness" consists of nothing more then the same happy feelings that make a Mia Maid cry at girl's camp. It's your position, bro! It's the cumulative faith of everyone who believes you have a particularly special relationship with Jesus not unlike the one the original apostles had 2000 years ago. These soothing words of a prophet have been a source of peace, a calm in a storm of painful self-examination and tender feelings in the ensuing agonizing hours which have passed day and night since then. Monson the soothsayer. I don't think Mormons are supposed to like soothsayers. Flattering people is a no no.

I rehearsed what I have just described to you to my sweet companion, Lesa, later that day, seated in a quiet corner on Temple Square, with a serene view of the temple and the historic Tabernacle lying before us. Oh, here she is! Isn't it beautiful how Tommy and his crew took no consideration of her in this whole process and left it entirely up to you? I'm sure she was thrilled to have this new popped on her like an unexpected wedding engagement! :S As we tried to comprehend and process the events of the day, we found our anchor to be our faith in Jesus Christ and our knowledge of the great plan of happiness. In other words you sat around confessing that you had no idea what the fuck was going on, but it's all good because Jesus is rad and his plan is the best? Whatever works for you, man. This leads to an expression of my deepest love for Lesa. She is the sunshine in and of my life and a remarkable daughter of God. Sounds... condescending... Hers is a life punctuated by selfless service and unconditional love of all. So she's the perfect Mormon woman who has given up everything to bear children and watch her husband move up the ladder of success. How 1950s of you two. I will strive to remain worthy of the blessing of our eternal union. It's time to close your Ashley Madison account.

I express my deepest love to our four sons and their families, three of whom are here with their beautiful wives, the mothers of our six grandchildren; the fourth, a missionary, has special permission to stay up past missionary curfew and is viewing these proceedings live with his mission president and the mission president’s wife from their mission home in Taiwan. Oh, the mandatory pater familias creds. No thanks. I love each of them and love how they love the Savior and the gospel. Chances are one of those grandkids is going to up and leave the Church one day. I hope you still love him or her then.

I express my love to each member of my family: to my dear mother and to my father, who passed away last year, who instilled in me a testimony which seemed to dwell in me from my earliest memories. That's called childhood indoctrination. Had you been born in another part of the world, just imagine what you might have known from the earliest age. I further extend this gratitude to my brother, sisters, and their faithful spouses, as well as Lesa’s family, many of whom are actually here today. They didn't fucking nominate you for an award, man. This isn't the Oscars. I cast this net of gratitude to numerous extended family, friends, missionaries, leaders, and teachers along the way. Now thank Jesus for looking favorably upon your whiteness and delightsomeness.

I have been blessed with a close association with the members of the First Presidency, the Twelve, the Seventy, and the general auxiliary presidencies. I express my love and esteem to each of you sisters and brothers and will strive to be worthy of our continued association. This sounds like a business promotion speech. The Presiding Bishopric enjoys an almost heavenly unity. Sounds sexual. I will miss my association each day with Bishop Gérald Caussé, Bishop Dean M. Davies, and the staff. Especially the hot young staffers (you know who you are!).

I stand before you as evidence of the words of the Lord recorded in the first section of the Doctrine and Covenants: “That the fulness of [the] gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the [earth], and before kings and rulers.” Enough with the false humility bullshit. You and Ronny are probably going to get into fights over who's the most humble about your new calling. These words are preceded by the Lord’s declaration which demonstrates the love of a Father for His children: “Wherefore, I the Lord, knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth, called upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and spake unto him from heaven, and gave him commandments.” Right, because fathers who love their kids a ton call up one of them - and only one (who happens to live in an extremely remote part of the world) - to give emergency preparedness instructions. Contacting each child individually is too time consuming for a father. By the way, is this the same father who called a council in heaven? He obviously regretted calling it.

Our loving Heavenly Father and His Son, Jehovah, with a knowledge of the end from the beginning, opened the heavens and a new dispensation to offset the calamities that They knew would come. Oh, Mormon polytheism, how the rest of the Christian world deplores it! The Apostle Paul described the forthcoming calamities as “perilous times.” Fear mongering. For me, this suggests that Heavenly Father’s generous compensation for living in perilous times is that we also live in the fulness of times. Yes! It's so wonderful living in a day and age when polygamy and abstinence from coffee have been restored! It totally makes up for all the killing going on around us constantly. :S

As I agonized over my inadequacies this week, I received a distinct impression which both chastened and comforted me: to focus not on what I can’t do but rather on what I can do. Whoa! This almost sounds like a spiritual experience! It's not quite a visitation from Jesus, but we'll be damned if we don't take it! I can testify of the plain and precious truths of the gospel. Which are what? I'm only asking because nothing in Mormonism seems very clear or precious to me these days.

These are the words which I have shared hundreds of times with both those who belong to the Church and many who are not members: “God is our [loving] Heavenly Father. I seriously doubt that. We are His children. I so doubt that. … He weeps with us when we suffer and rejoices when we do what is right. I can't see how that's even possible. He wants to communicate with us, and we can communicate with Him through sincere prayer. I've tried it often. It never worked. …

“Heavenly Father has provided us, His children, with a way to … return to live in His presence. He's got an awesome TV, a huge Blue Ray collection, tons of tasty treats, cozy furniture and is a generous cuddler. … Central to our [Heavenly] Father’s plan is Jesus Christ’s Atonement.” Ah, yes. The Atonement! That nonsensical act in which torture and bloodshed satiated the demands of some powerful law that God himself couldn't disregard or build around. 

Heavenly Father sent His Son to the earth to atone for the sins of all mankind. Because he was powerless to forgive. He absolutely had to have payment for every last sin. Of these plain and precious truths I bear my testimony, and I do so in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Oh, shit! These were the "plain and precious truths"? I'm not better off in understanding this stuff than I was before.

When You Don't Like the Temple - My response

Rumors about people leaving the church because they didn't like the temple abound in Mormonism. I heard that it was freaky or weird, then I took out my endowment for myself. I didn't see the freaky. I did see a little weird. But my problem was I didn't see much of the divine or inspirational. It's nice to know that others have had the same problem. It's nice to be able to talk about our temple experiences without fear of committing some kind of sin.

What follows are the thoughts of a couple who has struggled and then found faith somehow, and my thoughts on those thoughts. I applaud their willingness to breach the issue, but that's about all. The original post can be found here.

When You Don't Like The Temple

My husband was asked to speak this month on the temple, and so he and I worked on this talk together. I wanted to put it on the blog in case it is helpful to anyone else in this situation.

 So to start, I want to share a very personal experience. I hope it's about seeing a spirit apparition in the temple...

When my wife and I were engaged, I had the opportunity to take her through the temple for the first time, a moment I had looked forward to since going through myself. Sounds like you were probably smitten with the experience for some reason. I wasn't. When she came into the celestial room where I and all her family were waiting, she started crying. And it took everyone back a little, because it didn’t look like a happy cry. That's horrible. I feel for her already.

As it turned out, she had not enjoyed her temple experience. I wonder what the statistics are on people not having a good first time in there... In fact, unbeknownst to me at the time, that night she stayed up until 4:00 in the morning crying and wondering if she should tell me that she no longer wanted to be married in the temple because of how it had made her feel. I certainly wanted nothing to do with the temple after a while as well, but for me it took more than one lackluster experience. I was devoted! Did you really use "unbeknownst" in your talk? Wow. Anyway, let's see how she felt after going through the temple...

Well, she decided to push through her doubts and confusion, and get married in the temple. Wait, you didn't say how she felt, you didn't bother mentioning what her doubts were or why she was confused. This feels like a major jump in your story. Why didn't you give us something here? The importance of the temple was something she had believed in her whole life, and she didn’t think she should so drastically change her mind after this first disappointing experience. Hold up. Let's set this story straight. She has spent her whole life being taught that the temple was important and decided it was better that she be disappointed rather than disappoint her whole family, friends, ward and fiancé.

So we got married in the temple, and it was a happy occasion. Probably because she didn't have to go through the same sexist bullshit that she had to endure during the endowment. The next time we went to the temple together, however, I got the whole story. I hope we get it too... Her feelings were all shocking to me. I think there are a lot of folks like you in the Church who are shocked to hear that the temple didn't come off too well on someone (most of them are probably men, like you). I had never struggled with the temple and I had always thought of temple as the happiest place on earth! But not because that's what you were told your entire life that it was. :S Initially I was not as understanding as I should have been. I am not proud of it, but I was probably a little combative and so the conversations usually ended with both of us in frustration. At least you'll admit it now. But over the last 6 years of conversations, I have come to better understand her experience and have learned of, and sometimes felt, the uncertainty and pain that aspects of the temple bring to her and others in the church. It's taken six years of conversing about this?! Hey, at least you've gotten somewhere.

I don’t share this story to strike fear into the hearts of youth and people getting ready to go to the temple. It is not something to be feared. I totally agree. Kids, be fearless in the temple. Don't let concerns of divine acceptance prevent you from thinking for yourself and doing what you feel is best for you. Temples are built as monuments to God and we take incredible steps toward him and learn many things about him when we attend the temple. The steps you take involve learning Masonic handshakes and saying while wearing Freemason-inspired clothing. I personally don't see Feemasonry as the pathway to God. I also don't recall what you learn of God other than his special Hebrew name, Elohim.

I do share this story for three reasons.  

• One, because I want to dispel the belief that having a hard time with the temple is always associated with not being personally worthy or not having enough faith. AMEN! My wife was and is amazing, and her doctrinal knowledge and active participation in the church were some of the main reasons I was attracted to her.  
• Second, I want people to know, unlike me at the time, that there are those who have a hard time with the temple so that we can be prepared to demonstrate compassion and love when we hear of such experiences. So God puts these doubters into our path to test us? God's a nut.
• Finally, I would like to present to you a few of the things Liz and I have learned as we’ve worked through this experience together. Oh, please do! I've never felt very inspired or educated in the temple. I would love to know what you've learned. In fact, you will hear a lot of “we” in this talk. We counseled together a lot in preparation for this, so these words and this experience truly are “ours.” Team work! There's no "I" in "marria-" Oh! Never mind.

One final caveat, if this is surprising to you, like it was to me, that some people have a hard time with the temple, I would ask that you stay with me! STAY WITH HIM! You never know if someday it might be you, or if there is someone that the Lord wants you to hear this message for, so that you can give them the kind of love and support that the Lord would give them. That's right, YOU MIGHT NOT LIKE THE TEMPLE when you go through for the first time! God might have inspired this talk for you so when you meet someone who didn't have a good experience you'll be prepared for that nutty test thing alluded to earlier.

With that said, I want to share a quote from a conference address by President Monson in 2010 where he said, “I think there is no place in the world where I feel closer to the Lord than in one of His holy temples. He thinks? Is Tommy doubting? As we go to the holy house, as we remember the covenants we make therein, we will be able to bear every trial and overcome each temptation. That's an easy promise, isn't it? It almost sounds too good to be true... The temple provides purpose for our lives. If you're life had no purpose without the temple, I can't help but feel bad for you. It brings peace to our souls” But not all of our souls for some reason. Probably because of Satan. Or maybe God if he's using us to test each other again.

I want to testify that this is what a dedicated house of the Lord, the temple, is for. We should use the building as a place to build our relationship with God, in addition to making sacred temple covenants!  We need to remember that! I'm pretty sure we don't need temples to build our relationship with God (should he even exisit). Jesus was pretty quiet about the whole temple thing and preferred instead to focus on baptism and loving God through loving our neighbors. It should be the place where we ponder and seek counsel from God on the purpose of our life. Not by our bed as we pray, or sitting meetings in church, or when we're having a difficult interaction with family and coworkers, or when we're out in nature? It should be the place where we learn the temporal nature of this life, learn how to overcome trials, gain insight from the Lord, and learn about the eternal possibilities that lie ahead, both from what is being said and done, and also from prayer and contemplation there. And what happens when the temple does almost none of those things in any significant way for us? Is it OK to move on with life and find something else more reliable?

However, as I’ve already mentioned, to some their trial is the temple, because it does not inherently bring them peace. That puts one's testimony in a very tricky situation. So what are you to do if that is your situation? Exactly! Now there are a lot of things you probably could do, but as I said, I want to share some of the things Liz and I did:

First, we never stopped going to the temple. I did. But it took me a while to reach that point. Eventually you've got to call the spade a spade. Liz had been taught that she would never have a testimony of the temple if she wasn’t going to the temple, so even though she didn’t feel comfortable initially, she continued to go, genuinely trying to find ways to like it and to feel spiritually filled. And eventually she got used to it, I guess.

In the beginning, she decided that if nothing else, it was peaceful to sit in a place that represented heaven, and that could be a sacred experience for her even if everything else that was said or done didn’t bring her peace. Really? Nothing else that was said or done brought her peace? I can't believe she put up with the temple for so long! The funny thing for me is that the Celestial Room is one of the things that didn't bring me peace. I was an awkward hotel lobby. I tried meditating and praying in there and just couldn't get anything. As she continued to go, she was able to add things to her list that she both enjoyed and had a testimony of. So she just got used to it all with time. Not a great testimony sell.

She continues to do that today. I'd love to see the list of things she still doesn't like. That would definitely give us something to talk about. So if you don’t like a part or several parts of the temple, or don’t understand them, don’t let that ruin the whole temple experience for you. Why not? Would you eat a bowl of ice cream with cockroaches mixed in? Would you just focus on the parts you like as you dutifully eat it? Cling to the things you do enjoy, the things that do bring you peace, and let those things bring you back to the temple as you continue to expand your knowledge. Knowledge of what? I don't think you're using knowledge the way the rest of the English-speaking world would understand it.

Second, we continued to ask questions and seek answers in the temple. What questions did you ask? Who did you ask? What were the answers? What questions do you still have? Isn't it a little strange that after going through the temple endowment regularly for six years you still have questions about things? Elder Nelson in 2010 said “The temple endowment was given by revelation. Thus, it is best understood by revelation, vigorously sought with a pure heart.” You mean you don't ask anyone except Our Imaginary Friend who is Heaven? Have you ever asked other people if they've received the same answers through revelation? I'm guessing no.

Admittedly, revelation on the temple is hard to come by. That's quite a reveal! Are you sure you're doing it right? If so, why would your loving heavenly father be so stingy with his answers? It takes a lot of work, a lot of study, and even then you don’t know if you have the right answer. That's because you can't check your answers with anyone. The brethren like to keep us seeking answers in the temple endlessly and paying a full tithe in order to do so. But I can testify that while having questions initially brought me and Liz a lot of awkward conversations, frustration, and pain, it also eventually brought, and continues to bring, answers and faith that I’m not sure would have come if we hadn’t had the question in the first place. Are you insinuating that people who don't struggle with the temple are in the end weaker than those who do? I'm still dying to know what questions your wife had.

I can also testify that while we have sought to understand parts of the temple that were stumbling blocks to Liz, and thus to me, we have  a much deeper understanding of the things taught in the temple and in the church than we did before we asked the hard questions. Wait! How do you know you have a deeper understanding of anything at all? You just got through telling us that you don't ask other human beings your questions and you don't get many revelations from the Big Guy. So what scale are you using to measure your understanding?

Let me emphasize, we do not understand everything in the temple. Bring your questions to me and I'll do what I can to straighten you out on the details. Sometimes parts still cause pain and confusion. Like what? Let's talk. I'm curious to know why you keep subjecting yourself to this thing that causes you pain and confusion. But we are hopeful that answers will continue to come. All we have is hope. In essence, continued attendance is our faith in action. That's true. We have a solid testimony in the 9^th article of faith which states: "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." Good for you. I have no faith in that. Here's an idea why I don't.

One of my favorite religious and secular authors is Clayton Christensen. In his book “The Power of Everyday Missionaries” he says, “There is not a footnote at the end of the 9^th article of faith to say that we know all things about any gospel principles. We have more to learn!” and so it is with the temple. We shouldn’t expect to have all the answers, because it's in our doctrine that we don’t. What answers are you talking about? What questions are we answering? You make this sound so difficult and yet we don't know what your difficulty is.

The idea that He will yet reveal many great and important truths is a central part of our doctrine. So you go to the temple regularly and participate in activities you don't like or understand because you hope that one day it will all make sense to you? THIS IS NOT HEALTHY. GET OUT.

Liz and I have become intimately acquainted with the pain and patience required to learn the gospel “line upon line, and precept upon precept.” Jesus never said it would be easy, right? But we have grown immensely in our understanding of revelation because of it. You understand that it doesn't really come very often and that it's hard to understand if it did come. Thanks for being honest, but it sounds like you're being conned.

Third, we actively pondered on and studied the symbols in the temple.

Again from, Elder Nelson “The temple ordinances are so imbued with symbolic meaning as to provide a lifetime of productive contemplation and learning.” This bullshit about symbols really gets my goat. You can stare at a wall of symbols all you want but without proper guidance and training you're not going to get very far. Even in the case of highly trained people making a breaking through in some previously unknown set of symbols, they always share their finds and see if others agree with the predicted meanings. Symbols are about communication and don't mean anything without an interlocutor. So let's back up a bit to the creation of the symbols. Who made the symbols? Why do the makers of temple symbols not share the meaning of these symbols with the rest of us? Are we to believe that God inspires these symbols without explaining them to the people who present them to us? Did God reveal the words and gestures of the temple to Joseph Smith and then say "figure it out, buddy!"? Did he guide the hands of his movie directors and not give them the reasons behind the moments of genius he bestowed upon them?

Given the amount of symbolism, Liz and I have made a habit of focusing on one or two things each time we go and then ponder and study them. Like what? What are examples of temple symbols you've focused on? Which ones have you figured out and what do they mean? Don't leave us hanging. Are you worried we won't agree or are you worried God will get mad at you for taking temple on the internet? This practice has kept the temple both current and more meaningful. Meaningful only to the extent that you make up what it means. It has helped us not become complacent in our learning or understanding of the temple ceremony. Except you don't know if you're learning or just pretending to. As a result, we’ve found answers and explanations, and we’ve also found more questions. But you won't share. That's very dickish. It seems we are never out of questions, but those questions are no longer as frustrating because we have learned to live in peace with questions and learned to enjoy the process of looking for answers. You've resigned yourself to the futility of it all. Congratulations. :S

Fourth, we had faith that the blessings of the temple would hold true even if it was hard to go. What blessings are we talking about again? We have been promised that we will be given extra spiritual strength and help with mortal problems when we attend the temple, and we trust that that will be true even if attending sometimes feels spiritually draining in the moment. "Spiritual strength" to deal with "moral problems"? What are you talking about? Give us an example.

This faith was built on knowledge that throughout the scriptures, the Lord consistently has his prophet’s build temples. So they must be a place where He wants us to be. Actually, there are only about three temples in all of the Bible and a good many more prophets than that. One of the biblical temples - the during Jesus' time - had been totally redone by a non-prophet. Not only that, those temples were all drastically different from the secret Masonic thing the LDS Church has going on today. I think the only reason you're conflating current LDS practices with ancient Israelite practices is because the LDS Church tells you it makes sense to. You're also conveniently ignoring all the temple building traditions that the LDS Church excludes. Are Buddhist temples a sign of divine guidance? In fact, in the Old Testament, Ezekiel is shown a detailed vision of the temple. He sees a temple sitting in the desert, and out of the temple is running a huge river of water. The water main must have been busted...

In Ezekiel chapter 47 verse 7-9, an angel shows him that there were “very many trees on the one side and on the other.” And then he was shown that the waters ran through the desert into the sea, where the waters of the sea were then healed. The angel concludes by saying “every thing shall live whither the river cometh.” Zeke was totally trippin'!

I love these scriptures, because it does indeed feel like the world is a spiritual desert sometimes. Because the Church constantly teaches that the world is barren and depraved and miserable. But we’re told that the temple will give healing water to those living in the desert, “and everything shall live whither the river cometh.” Sure, but what about all the "very many trees" on either side of the temple? It sounds like they had their own water and were probably part of an amazing ecosystem independent of the temple's broken water main.

We know, that despite questions, we need access to the spiritual water that can keep us and our family alive in the deserts of our lives. "Deserts of our lives"? I thought the world was a desert. Aren't we all living in a spiritual desert all the time? We have faith that if we continue to go to the temple, we will be given the water we need. Kids, if this "we'll die without the temple" routine sounds dramatic to you, let me assure you that it is. It's also bullshit. Billions of people live happy, beautiful, moral lives without the LDS temple.

Lastly, when I decided that I would be focusing my talk on our personal experience with the temple, by coincidence (which I don’t typically believe in) I saw on Facebook that a close friend of ours had just given a talk in her ward on this exact same topic! Everything happens for a reason, doesn't it?! :S I asked if I could get a copy of it and I would like to share an excerpt that I think sums up the message I wanted to send today:

She says: “The temple should be a place of peace, but unfortunately the temple is a very painful place for some members of the church. Maybe because it's not all it's cracked up to be. The temple should be a place free from sin. But it's totally not because those men assigned to filter out the sinners have no true filtering capabilities. It probably is in the brief moment between when it’s dedicated and when the first person walks into it. I doubt it though when I consider how much the Church spent on it verses how much good that money could have done for the poor and destitute. The temple, like our homes, should be a place that binds families together, both through ordinances and the closeness that comes from worshiping together. It should bind families, but it doesn't always. So many times it becomes a place of division and family feuds. However, differences in belief, poor use of agency, or misuse of the temple can actually damage families or pull them apart. AMEN. My point is that the temple is not a magical building immune from the frailties of our telestial existence. So true. The temple feels just as worldly as the rest of this "telestial" world. The temple is a building that we built and that WE dedicate to God. Yes, built and dedicated to the god that we build for ourselves and dedicated ourselves to. Dedicate means devotion and work. The dedication of a temple is a beginning, not the end.” I hope the temples end up as public buildings dedicated to housing the homeless and feeding the hungry.

To echo her words, we often discuss the temple as the climax of our church membership, but in truth, the temple is another beginning which takes work and devotion! It's another pointless Mormon boulder we have to keep rolling to the top of the hill only to have it roll back down again. There are many such boulders God wants us to push up hills. Seriously, baptisms for the dead is an insane endeavor considering how few accurate records have been kept for the world's population; temple sealings are an utter mess and even the top leadership admits that we'll just have to wait until the afterlife to see how God will sort it all out. I can only imagine why a loving intelligent god would makes us go through with this silliness.

 “Get everyone to the temple and the spirit of the temple in every heart and home” is our stake motto by revelation. You know it was a revelation how? Your stake presidency said so and it felt great when you prayed about it? What if your stake president had picked about any other sentence from a general authority's General Conference address? In the temple we make promises with God that have eternal significance with incredible blessings for us as we are faithful! I tried to identify those promised blessings not too long ago. I didn't see much in them worth fretting about. However, when we attend the temple, we need to understand that the temple is not perfect, as our friend says, but it is a truly amazing blessing given to us to grow closer to the Living God and learn to be more like him. What's not perfect about it? Let's identify some problems and get them resolved. We have to own our temple experience and use it for its designed purpose. Yes, as with essentially everything, it's only what we make it to be. While some aspects of the temple may cause some pain, do not discard all of the blessings that come from temple attendance. Tell us what the pain is and what the blessings are and let's do a cost benefits analysis.

In conclusion I want to share  a few thoughts from our general officers of the church:

First, Elder Bednar in this most recent conference said, “Within the sound of my voice are individuals who have received the ordinances of the temple and for various reasons have not returned to the house of the Lord in quite some time. My reason is that it didn't make me feel closer to God in any way shape or form. Then I found out more about how Joseph Smith came up with the whole charade. There was no way I was going back. I didn't miss it anyway. Please repent, prepare, and do whatever needs to be done so you can again worship in the temple and more fully remember and honor your sacred covenants.” There is no honor and no sanctity in the temple. And nothing to repent of.

I want to bear my testimony that it is worth going back, even if it requires a lot of soul searching and stretching of your mind, and maybe even actively overlooking parts that you do not like. I'm sure God's thrilled with us when we sit in his sacred theater and ignore all the stuff we don't like. :S It is worth going back and experiencing how the temple can draw you closer to Jesus Christ. Been there multiple times and tried that over and over. It didn't work.

Second, you may be tempted to think that if you don’t currently have a strong testimony of the temple, than you must not belong in this church. Kids, the Church wants you no matter what as long as you pay your tithing in full. But Sister Chieko Okazaki, a past general relief society presidency member, spoke to members who had felt like outsiders in the church when she said:

"If you experience the pain of exclusion at church from someone who is frightened at your difference, please don't leave [or] become inactive. The Church likes differences? Since when? Joseph Smith was avid about excommunicating people he had differences with. Things haven't changes too much since then. You may think you are voting with your feet, that you are making a statement by leaving. You are! The faster you walk away the sooner the Church will change for you.  [Some may] see your diversity as a problem to be fixed, as a flaw to be corrected or erased. Usually that someone is your bishop or neighbor who wishes he were the bishop. If you are gone, they don't have to deal with you anymore. Actually, you don't have to deal with them anymore! I want you to know that your diversity is a more valuable statement." Yes, stay and piss people in your ward off by making comments during lessons that will drive them all nuts. It'll be fun to be the target of their frustration. :S

Do not allow the fact that some people don’t find pain in the temple make you think that it is you who is broken. It's not you, it's the temple, believe me! We all have our trials of faith and for some it is having faith in the temple and being obedient by attending until understanding or new revelation come. You'll likely die before that happens. That is not something that disqualifies you from being a valuable member of this church. Your value in the Church rests entirely upon your regular tithing payments. And for those who may not struggle with the temple, we should be constantly reflecting on how we can be those ward members that are there to support others, even if we may not have had their same doubts. Empathizing with others? Sounds pretty awesome. We need to value diversity and the new insight and revelation diversity brings to us as a whole. Amen.

Liz and I have grown together in the temple, not because we felt it was perfect, but because of the way we dedicated our worship while we were there. Couples projects are the shit! We believe in the blessings of attending the temple, and I hope that if for whatever reason you have also struggled with attending the temple, that you will trust that it is worth going back. Sorry, you haven't sold me on the going back thing at all. I totally disagree with the idea of sitting and fuming over all the bullshit in the temple with the hope that one day my prayers of understanding will magically be partially answered. The way I see it, your god is about as generous of a teacher as someone who gives a toddler a Rubik's cube for a couple of hours and shows up every ten or fifteen minutes to show what the next move should be. Or worse, your god is the kind of sadist to give his torture victims enough false hope to keep them going despite the total absurdity of his torture chamber. Some people get off on that sort of thing, I don't. From where I stand the LDS temple is a sunken ship. I can't see any reason to climb back aboard.

Sex changes - Heavenly Mother's husband

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?

"A three-year-old had wandered off on an adventure, shedding her clothing as she went. When she realized she was lost as well as cold, she knocked at the home of this young man. He saw a little girl standing on the step; she was wearing only soiled underwear and was crying her heart out. He took her in, and while they waited for the police to find her father, he wrapped her in a blanket and held her on his lap and sang songs to her. He made her clown faces on home-dipped ice cream cones and drew pictures with her so she could surprise her mother. He made her feel marvelous.

"When at last the girl's father arrived, she started for the front door. Then suddenly she stopped, maybe remembering what a special time she had had with the young man.

"'Hey!' she asked. 'Are you Heavenly Mother's husband?'

The young man was startled - and sobered. At last he replied, 'No, but I am her son.'"
Elaine A. Cannon, "Voices," New Era, Jul. 1980, 13.

Besides being a sappy, poorly told story, there's nothing in this modified version that should offend LDS sensitivities. We might be caught off guard at first by a story about a naked little girl spending an afternoon with a young man, but I think that's mostly because American culture - disgustingly - has hyper-sexualized children. The most offensive aspect of this story is found in the original, where Heavenly Mother is called "Heavenly Father's wife". You know there's a problem with gender inequality when a woman's identity relies entirely on a reference to a man.

Emma and Camille

We might ask ourselves why exactly Emma stayed with Joseph if he was such a scoundrel. Surely she would have had enough self-respect to walk away from such an unfaithful husband, right?

Reading this commentary on why Camille Cosby might have stayed with Bill reminded me once again of Emma's position as a victim. Like Camille, she was married to a rising star, a man she loved and trusted. As her husband's public respect and power grew, so did her incentive to stay by his side. With so many speaking so highly of her husband, why would she believe the few dissenting voices? How can you stop loving and supporting someone who means the whole world to you?

Is it possible for a disgusting person to do amazing things like teach, entertain, and make thousands of people feel special? Do disgusting and criminal behaviors somehow undermine the good things someone does? Are we supposed to let men like Joseph Smith and Bill Cosby off the hook despite they're abuses?

Polygamy - prophetic voice

I've posted before about John Taylor's questionable sanity, but please consider for a moment John Taylor's summation of the evil of monogamy:

"...the one-wife system not only degenerates the human family, both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality; it is a lure to temptation, and has always proved a curse to a people."

Holy shit that's a moronic thing to say!

Now consider that he was not at all alone in departing such stupidity from the pulpit. WTF, folks? There's no way LDS Mormons are supposed to believe any of this, right?

Traditional marriage

It's nice to see the LDS Church recognized that the tradition of marriage is an ever-changing one:

For much of Western history, family “interest”—economic, political, and social considerations—dominated the choice of spouse. Parents had the power to arrange marriages or forestall unions of which they disapproved. By the late 1700s, romance and personal choice began to rival these traditional motives and practices. By Joseph Smith’s time, many couples insisted on marrying for love, as he and Emma did when they eloped against her parents’ wishes. (See here.)

It's a small admission, but it's a hell of a lot better than their usual homophobic bullshit about "traditional marriage" going back to Adam and Eve. Here the Church admits that women have long been considered property of a man (like in D&C 132:62) and an important trade commodity (think of the tradition of asking for a father's permission and his agreement to "give away the bride"). Kudos.

Let's do what we can to avoid reinstating that tradition where it has fallen out of use.

Why God requires polygamy 2

So why? Why polygamy? The three new essays released on lds.org all make sure to bring up Jacob 2:30 right away.

The Book of Mormon identifies one reason for God to command it: to increase the number of children born in the gospel covenant in order to “raise up seed unto [the Lord].” (See here.)

God declared in the Book of Mormon that monogamy was the standard; at times, however, He commanded plural marriage so His people could “raise up seed unto [Him].” (See here.)

Church members viewed plural marriage as a commandment from God, an imperative that helped “raise up” a righteous posterity unto the Lord. (See here.)

So the answer is: BABIES FOR JESUS! I'm not sure why God needs babies so badly when there are plenty being born all the time. What makes children born "in the covenant" so much more valuable than all the others. Shit, why's he need children at all? They don't even make money to pay tithing. Are children the only people who believe in god stories anymore? No missionary work? Just baby-making sex? Can't God encourage some inter-tribal adoption? 

"Hold on a second, sugar, let's let the pregnant ones catch up."

If God needed babies so badly why didn't Adam get a few hundred wives instead of just little old Evie? Why didn't Noah's boys fill the Ark with God's most fertile? Why didn't Nephi and his brothers have a shit ton of sister wives? Why didn't Jesus' mighty twelve just hang around in harems all day instead of going out and preaching? Why didn't Joseph have any children with his 30 plus wives? Why did Brigham only have a couple more children than he had wives? Why do we see that polygamy fails to produce more children than monogamy?

Does God suck at math? Or was Jacob wrong about the divine purpose of polygamy?

At least Lot had two daughters to rape him instead of just one.

Why God requires polygamy

The LDS Church did something big. It finally opened up to discussing its lesser-known polygamist past. Congratulations, Mormons. Truly and sincerely.

But I do have a few questions:

1. What is inherently righteous, holy or godly about plural marriage? Where is the divinity in this principle?

2. Why is polygamy part of the Gospel Restoration? What does it have to do with the Fall, the Atonement and the Final Judgement? How does it fit into the salvation of humankind?

3. What good did plural marriage accomplish either for God or Joseph or any of his wives or anyone else involved in a plural marriage or the Mormon community in general or humanity at large?

From what I can tell the article offers no answers. Why not?