Observations and Suggestions on
The Future of Mormonism
In these days of the
Internet, and enormously expanded social media systems, drawing in billions of
participants, it has become a thriving cottage industry for people, nonmembers
and members alike, to point out numerous supposed faults and failings with the
LDS church and its leaders, including making "a man an offender for a word."
Apparently, this sort of thing has happened before, without the Internet. See
Isaiah 29:21, 2 Ne. 27:32
2
Ne. 27:31 For assuredly as the Lord liveth they shall see that the terrible one
is brought to naught, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for
iniquity are cut off;
32
And they that make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that
reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught.
If some ideas of
"constructive criticism" were involved here in this new cottage
industry, some of this chatter might have a good purpose. However, it would
probably be very hard to find that rare person who is actually interested in
building up rather than tearing down. Many alleged errors are based on faulty
or fabricated history, and specious logic, making it unclear whether there
really was a problem or not.
Of course, even if one
did have a good constructive intent, how many people are there who thoroughly
understand the original gospel which Christ taught, and can therefore reliably
point out deviations from it, and ways to strengthen it?
I
agree that the church today has many serious problems, and what follows is my
attempt to point them out and suggest how to rectify them. The eternal gospel
is surely a valuable thing, but who knows it's correct content these days? Here's
one big problem:
We Can't Even Decide Who We Worship
Joseph
Smith thought it was a good idea for us to know who we worshiped, and, besides
all the scriptures, we also have The Lectures on Faith to give us a little
extra help with that problem.
BYU is a
great example of the jumble of seriously inconsistent ideas that make up the
church today. If you go to the religion
department you will learn certain things about God and religion. In that department, it is taught that God is
an extremely powerful and personal being who created all things, including
human life, while he himself is a handy example of exalted human life. The Scriptures tell us that "worlds
without number have I created" and "For behold, there are many worlds
that have passed away by the word of my power." Moses 1:33-40. One gets the impression that
God can create whole universes and any number of Earths, complete with a
complex biosphere, including humans, and do it all fairly quickly. We count on God to provide us a very
extravagant heaven where we can live for eternity, and also to resurrect our bodies
so that we can go there and continue his work of providing earths and bodies
for other spirits to inhabit and gain interesting experiences. When Christ was on earth he performed his
miracles in real time, that is, in human time, the time that we understand. In an eyeblink he commanded "Lazarus,
come forth," and a man who had been dead for four days was restored to
life and left the tomb. Christ himself
was resurrected, and then thousands of other people were resurrected and seen
in the vicinity of Jerusalem. His many
miracles, including restoring people to life, all happened very quickly, within
moments or days at most.
We are told
that God is the father of our spirits and the father of our bodies as well,
through the indirect process of putting Adam and Eve on the earth here who then
propagated their species and filled the earth.
We are told that the process of creation involves creating things first
spiritually and then temporally, as in the case of the spirits and bodies of
Adam and Eve.
The process
of bringing a person back to life or the process of resurrecting them is rather
similar in that the inanimate dust of the earth is organized into a living creature. Presumably the process of resurrection might
take somewhere between an eyeblink and a few days to accomplish.
In contrast
to all of this, if we go to the biology Department of BYU, they may or may not
reluctantly admit that there is a God somewhere in the universe, but if there
is such a God, he must be almost unimaginably weak, having no management
control of hardly anything. It is hard
to imagine him actually sponsoring a heaven of any significance. It is inconceivable that the elements of the
universe would obey his commands. With
their allegiance to materialism and scientism, they surely will not want to
talk about the spirit forms of earths or people.
As far as
the physical forms of earths and people, God, if there is one, certainly does
not have the power to overrule or direct the ordinary operations of physics and
chemistry. If one wants to have a
universe or an earth or a human, these things can only come about through eons
of geologic time where, through the processes of pure random chance, single
molecules might gradually coalesce into proteins which then might accidentally form
a cell, and so on.
From one
department we learn we have a God who can resurrect someone from the dust of
the earth in an eyeblink, but, in a different department, that same God
supposedly has no power to create such a human being in the first place. If he wants there to be such a thing as a
human being on an earth, he must wait at least 2 billion years for the
evolution process to inch forward, sometimes taking 100 million years to make a
small change.
The
evolutionists cannot allow a personal God to exist, one who gives birth to
spiritual or temporal children and places them on a specific earth which he
also created. That takes far too much of
a powerful and personal God for them to allow to exist, since such a God could
figuratively wipe out their entire profession in an eyeblink. Their profession depends on getting God
completely out of the process of bringing life into being. If they were to quibble and allow God to
exist, he must be someone with barely measurable powers, who cannot really have
any effect on the world. Otherwise,
their profession makes no sense, if God can do in an eyeblink what they require
2 billion years to happen.
Obviously,
they can't allow themselves to think beyond the individual cell level. The idea that a God would have the power to
bring worlds into existence, and cause them to pass out of existence, is just
incomprehensible. For one thing, it
would disturb their concept of geologic time.
They would probably say that there has only ever been a single earth in
the history of the universe where life has come in to being, and it is
inconceivable that it could happen more than once, and especially, that it
would follow the exact same course in each iteration. (If you get the exact
same end result every time, then it is obviously not a random process.)
In their
frame of reference, if there is a God who has any effects over the management
of the universe, in every case where he creates a world, he would have to wait
2 billion years while life accidentally comes into being on that earth, and
there's nothing he can do about it except wait for an extremely uncertain
outcome, since, by definition, he has no control over the outcome of a totally
random process. Now, eternity is a long
time, so perhaps taking 2 billion years to reestablish life on every new planet
from scratch might not seem like a long time, but, at the same time we are told
in the religion department that all of these things can happen in an eyeblink,
as in the case of the many miracles of Christ.
The people in the biology department must directly or by implication say
that there is no such thing as a miracle which might be an example of God
directing normal low-level physics and chemistry towards some higher goal he
has in mind. And, of course, he could
not be allowed to do these things in an eyeblink. It must only be possible, if at all, through
geologic stretches of time.
To take
this time issue a step further, we are told that the temporal existence of the
earth is only 7,000 years. That itself
is only an eyeblink in the supposed 13.7 billion years of the universe or the 4.5
billion years of our earth. If entire
cohorts of billions of spirits from the spirit world can come to an earth, live
out their lives, and are sent to heaven, all in such a tiny amount of time, can
we really imagine that such a busy God has the patience to unnecessarily wait 2
billion years every time just to get the first person going on a new
Earth? We can probably assume that we
operate on a different time scale than does God himself, but still, if he deals
in production units of 7,000 years for each earth, he could accomplish 285,714
batches of earthed spirits in every 2-billion-year segment, if he wanted to,
but, in their pride, the evolutionists say that he cannot be allowed to do
that. If we assume that about 100 billion people are assigned to each earth,
that would mean delaying the progress of about 30 million billion intelligences
(3x1016) for at least 2 billion years. God might think it was a bad
idea to slow things down that much just to humor a few scientists who don't
believe in him anyway.
So, a
person is left to decide for themselves whether God has great power over
multiple universes or if he has no more power and influence than a Japanese
wood sprite might have in a tiny little corner of a forest. Which is the God we teach about and
worship? It truly cannot be both at the
same time, and there are huge consequences of making a choice. As it is, someone has simply avoided making
that choice which leaves us in a state of maximum confusion. I guess that means we have to make these
choices ourselves.
The form of
humans is perfectly clear at all times since God is one of them, and presumably
he has samples of all of his other creatures in heaven as well, so he doesn't
have to start experimenting from scratch again concerning any aspect of life on
earth. So, it does seem extremely silly
and wasteful to wait 2 billion years to develop a human body that is perfectly
known and in existence, and has existed on an infinite number of worlds
already. Or perhaps there is some kind
of labor union logic going on here where everything has to be done the hard
way, just to entertain the evolutionary scientists. It does seem a little
strange to have a few humans getting to define what God can do and when he can
do it, just to preserve their craft, which mostly consists of defending the
concepts of atheism. Could this doctrinal
confusion at BYU mean that some of the church leaders or employees who control BYU
today believe in atheism or agnosticism themselves? Stranger things have happened.
Based on the mission
that God has assigned himself,
Moses 1:39 For behold, this is my work
and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man
and assuming that there
are nearly an infinite number of intelligences who would like to make the
transition to spirits and embodied beings, it doesn't seem hard to imagine that
God might feel some sense of urgency about getting on with things. That might be
one of those things which God is limited by -- he may want to instantly redeem
an infinite number of intelligences, but even he has limits concerning what he
can accomplish by the power of his word. But apparently, there are some eternal
processes which it can only take place in human time, and cannot be speeded up
or slowed down.
In
other words, assuming God has that mindset of urgency, he might consider a 2-billion-year
delay or a 4.5-billion-year delay, in getting a new cohort of spirits onto an
earth to gain experience, to be a terrible and unnecessary waste of time.
Obviously, since he, and almost everyone he knows, has a perfected body, figuring
out how to get a proper body onto a proper earth is something he can accomplish
in an extremely short time. He has absolutely nothing to be learned or gained
from some kind of 2-billion-year evolution experiment. The desired outcome is
already fully and completely known and available for replication. For all we
know, one trillion trillion trillion years ago an evolutionary process is what
got everything started. But it can surely have nothing to do with what goes on
in our particular world, under the direction of our God.
The
main scriptural sources for the above thoughts are found in Moses 1.
Moses 1:33 And worlds without number have
I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created
them, which is mine Only Begotten.
34 And the first man of all men have I
called Adam, which is many.
35 But only an account of this earth, and
the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold,
there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And
there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all
things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them.
36 And it came to pass that Moses spake
unto the Lord, saying: Be merciful unto thy servant, O God, and tell me
concerning this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, and also the heavens, and
then thy servant will be content.
37 And the Lord God spake unto Moses,
saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but
they are numbered unto me, for they are mine.
38 And as one earth shall pass away, and
the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my
works, neither to my words.
39 For behold, this is my awork and my glory—to
bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
40 And now, Moses, my son, I will speak
unto thee concerning this earth upon which thou standest; and thou shalt write
the things which I shall speak.
The
Acts 5 Story of Ananias and Sapphira:
How
one scriptural word can make all the difference
between
corruption and incorruption
In Acts 5:13, Joseph
Smith changed the word "rest," which appears in the New Testament, to
the word "rulers." That seemingly microscopic change was actually an
inspired and critical change, but a fair amount of background study, analysis, and
commentary is necessary to demonstrate how this change of one scriptural word
effectively turns the current-day church completely upside down as far as its
principles of organization. It also massively revises, and often reverses, many
of the doctrines now taught which have been initiated by the seriously corrupt priestcraft
mindset over the last 126 years. The actual words of Acts 5 are very important,
so some of it is presented here:
3
But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine
heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
4
Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in
thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast
not lied unto men, but unto God.
…
10
Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the
young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by
her husband.
11
And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these
things.
12
¶ And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among
the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.
13
And of the rulers [previously "rest"] durst no man join himself to
them: but the people magnified them.
14
And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and
women.)
15
Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on
beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might
overshadow some of them.
16
There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem,
bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they
were healed every one.
A very big lesson from
a seemingly small revelation
One of the cornerstones
of the logic which priestcrafters spin out to convince people by using the
Scriptures that church leaders should be supported and paid as professionals by
the mandatory payments of their members comes from Acts 5 and the story of
Ananias and Sapphira. As the story is usually told, to benefit the priestcraft
line of logic, Ananias and Sophia, and all other members, supposedly discovered
that they were required to pay over all of their income to the church
collective on pain of death, because when that couple held back part of the
income from the sale of property, they were both struck dead within hours of
each other.
One clue that today's
interpretation of these scriptures is wrong on many points appears in Acts 5:3-4.
There Peter himself explains basically that the couple had no duty to pay
anything to anyone, and it was only that they had lied about the details of the
intended transaction that justified their death. So, if they had no duty to pay
anything whatsoever, why did the lie become important? Apparently, the lie is
all that mattered, because that lie, correctly understood, plus the related
treachery, is what the story is all about, not the money.
A careful reading of
these few verses should reveal to almost anyone that the story, as written, is
massively internally inconsistent. In verse 10, the woman quickly dies and is
buried near her recently deceased husband. It is not surprising that "And
great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these
things." Certainly, the quick deaths of two apparent converts would be
frightening to everyone, and everyone would want to know the reasons behind it.
But, in almost the same breath we hear that, "and believers were the more
added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." Apparently that
first wave of fear was extremely short-lived, and was followed immediately by
the masses being exultant about the new religious organization. How did that
fear so quickly become jubilation? The answer lies in who died and why.
Would-be infiltrators died for their treachery and mockery. Sincere people
would have no risk whatsoever, regardless of how they handled their money. Verse
13 is especially incomprehensible, as written. How does it happen that "no
man durst join himself to them," but, at the same time, "the people
magnified them." Those two opposites make no sense at all until one gets
the story straight that it was only impostors with evil intentions who had
anything to fear.
Of course, this story,
as usually interpreted, is not consistent with anything else of the sort in the
New Testament concerning member duties, but a fanatical rhetorician would never
allow that to weaken a good political talking point. It is a little bit hard to
imagine that Christ would set up a system which required people to hand over
every penny of what they have to the church on pain of death. If that were
true, one might expect that to be a great impediment to the church growing
after his death. A careful study of all of the situations involving Christ and
material goods shows that he never required anything of anyone. He only gave;
he never required anyone else to give anything. He expected himself and any
other disciples to either live off the land, with help from the heavens, or to
benefit from free-will gifts from church members. Getting rid of the mandatory
tithing which was so corrupting to the Old Testament church was one of the
things that Christ died to accomplish.
The truth of this
oft-misused story of Ananias and Sapphire is that those two people were part of
a group from among the leaders of the Old Testament church who wanted to
infiltrate the new church and reestablish and continue their priestcraft
controls and benefits. Their deaths were warnings that this kind of
infiltration of the new church would not be tolerated, and it appears to have
had all the effects intended. The old leaders were frightened away from trying
any of those tricks again, and the new members who were feeling liberated by
the new gospel could rightfully feel that they were being protected and assured
in their joining of this new church that it would not quickly deteriorate into
the dreaded Old Testament Mosaic church with its myriad of oppressive taxes and
regulations.
Without clearly saying
so, the leaders today seem to imply that the Acts 5 story tells us that we
really owe all of my resources to the central church, and that it is only by
their good graces that we only have to pay 10%. But that is a terrible lie. We
own nothing to the central church at all. We may owe something to our
neighbors, but only we can determine how much. It is called charity.
One group of Christian
researchers figured out the meaning of the Acts 5 story mostly using pure
gospel logic, plus perhaps a little history. That is quite an impressive
accomplishment, and it solves an important puzzle concerning the workings of
the New Testament church, but it was nonetheless a marvelous and welcome surprise
to discover that Joseph Smith had understood the Acts 5 situation correctly and
had made the substitution of a single word which completely upended today's
nonsensical priestcraft rendition of the meaning of this story. By changing the
word "rest" in Acts 5:13 to "rulers" he made it clear who
it was that should get the threatening message about keeping their hands off
this new church organization and its new members. The sincere members rejoiced,
as it tells us in v.12-14, as they were well justified in doing.
This original barrier
against priestcraft described in Acts 5 protected the original church from
immediate corruption. It was only much later, long after the death of Christ,
that priestcraft became the rule instead of the exception. Joseph Smith started
out the same way, and it was not until three prophets later that priestcraft
corruption was reintroduced. It seems extremely likely that the fall of the
church in the New World as described in the Book of Mormon followed exactly the
same course. When the church itself began to not only tolerate social classes
but help to enforce them through religious teachings and priestcraft, that is
the point where the process of serious social and religious disintegration
began, just as we see it today.
As the above discussion
should demonstrate, this one tiny part of the Joseph Smith Translation of the
New Testament would have made all his efforts worth it. It would be interesting
to know whether Joseph Smith suspected that priestcraft would later creep into
the church he restored. Perhaps we should consider this Acts 5 adjustment to be
one small effort on his part to prevent that from happening.
The
Rich Young Ruler
There is another
scriptural story which seems to be regularly embraced by the priestcraft
mindset and rhetoric for their own purposes. Since this story also has to do
with money changing hands in a religious setting, naturally there is a huge
temptation to twist the circumstances around to somehow support members giving all
their money to church leaders. It is actually very difficult to use this story
as effectively as the [corrupted and backwards] Acts 5 story to support
priestcraft, but the effort seems to continually be made. Here is the story:
Luke
18:18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to
inherit eternal life?
19
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that
is, God.
20
Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not
steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.
21
And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.
22
Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one
thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt
have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
23
And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.
Using
what we learned from the Acts 5 story as a beginning point, I believe we should
assume that we have approximately the same situation in progress, although this
story obviously happened before the Acts 5 events. The main difference is that
we have someone who is acting in a straightforward manner rather than being
tempted to become an imposter, and, as many learned later, potentially becoming
worthy of death because of his fraudulent behavior. Just as we found people
trying to transfer from the old church and infiltrate the new church to
continue their priestcraft lifestyle in Acts 5, here we have a rich young ruler,
presumably having lived an abundant priestcraft lifestyle in the old church,
who is probably thinking to himself that the way to continue to be a rich young
ruler, after the religious revolution then in progress, is to join the new
church of Christ and continue to be a priestcraft-style ruler in that setting.
I
have often wondered why Christ took offense at the young man calling him "Good
Master." My current answer is that Christ already knew what this young man
was hoping to accomplish, and was scornful of his intent while still trying not
to be too harsh. The young man was apparently trying to use flattery in
introducing himself, hoping that would help him accomplish his goal. It does
not seem to be explicitly mentioned, but there is the possibility that this
young man hoped to buy himself a position in the new church. In the young man's
culture, that would probably seem to make sense, although Christ could not
allow any such apparent impropriety. Christ
probably did not much care what happened to his riches, as long as this young
man could essentially take an oath of poverty, fully realizing that he would
have to live off the land or live off the free-will contributions of supporters
to avoid any charges of priestcraft. What he definitely could not do was ever
hope to make another shekel or mite from his position as a religious leader using
priestcraft principles.
As
I mentioned, it is hard to imagine how this story could be used to argue that
members should give all or most of their money directly to church leaders,
simply because they were church leaders. The best we can say is that this young
man was told to give up all his riches for some good purpose, and perhaps,
through some fancy footwork and word spinning, that good purpose might end up
being contributions to the leaders. Perhaps just this example of possibly separating
members from their resources for religious purposes (even though it didn't actually
happen in this story) is all the priestcraft theologians think they need to help
fabricate their spurious arguments.
The
Scriptural Test For Priestcraft Intent,
As
Established By Christ Himself,
To
Prevent Any Kind Of Priestcraft
Here is the story of
the three temptations of Christ:
Matt
4:1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of
the devil.
2
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command
that these stones be made bread.
4
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle
of the temple,
6
And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is
written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands
they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God.
8
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him
all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9
and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down
and worship me.
10
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11
Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Christ is first tempted
to use his special powers to meet his personal needs for food, perhaps to make
it unnecessary for him to actually experience the difficulties that humans normally
experience. Christ is then tempted to use his special powers and position to
gain fame and notoriety among the people. Finally, he is tempted with great temporal
power over people, money, and property. He resists them all, and tells Satan to
go away.
Christ followed this
pattern throughout his entire life, making sure that he never said anything
that people might interpret as requiring them to give him money for any
teachings or blessings or leadership. He never taxed anyone or tithed anyone,
especially not to use any such monies to create some kind of centralized religious
bureaucracy that might have the slightest connection with the old Sanhedrin. He
essentially took an oath of poverty, and required all of his disciples, those
who traveled with him, and who acted as his agents, to do the same. They either
lived off the land with blessings from God, or received contributions from
their supporters, but never attempted to separate believers from their money through
any priestcraft arguments.
Joseph Smith continued
the same practice, and it continued through Brigham Young and John Taylor. At
one early point, it was voted that the first presidency should receive a
salary, but they later thought better of it and rescinded that rule.
I personally believe
that the three temptations of Christ also happen to be perfect tests concerning
a leader's intent as to whether he will engage in forbidden priestcraft or
avoid it. As we can see, every "prophet, seer, and revelator"
beginning with Wilford Woodruff has failed the priestcraft tests as they have
taken church contributions to meet their own personal needs, and have planned
to build a religious bureaucracy and temporal empire driven by required church
contributions, issuing rules about required contributions even when they are
not authorized to make such rules.
The Great High Priest tolerated
no priestcraft, as indicated by the Acts 5 story, and the story of the rich
young man, and many other scriptures in the New Testament and in the Book of
Mormon. The only mystery is why He tolerates it in our time. I, for one, would
consider a central church calling to include a constant threat of death under
current circumstances. Certainly, I would not dare accept a dollar of
priestcraft-derived money from the central church administration.
Thinking about solutions
We
need an active suggestion box
The
extreme secrecy and insularity of LDS church headquarters seems to preclude any
meaningful consideration of suggestions from the members by the leaders. In
fact, I believe the instruction of Elder Boyd K. Packer to new general
authorities was that it was not their role to represent the members to the
leaders, but rather to only represent the leaders to the members. This fairly
extreme version of a top-down, authoritarian bureaucracy, the complete opposite
of any kind of representative democracy, the lack of any serious common
consent, at least at the central level, is one of the hints that the church has
problems in its relationship to the gospel which Christ taught.
We
have no fixed theology
I
believe insufficient studies have been done concerning the exact content of the
gospel which Christ taught his followers during his life, and which those
followers implemented after his death. Multiple researchers have noted that the
LDS church actually has no fixed theology, but only a history, that is, a
history of a constant series of important changes to doctrines and policies.
This is an unexpected, counterintuitive situation, since, on the one hand the
church headquarters claims to represent the eternal gospel which has been
unchanged since the foundation of the world, while at the very same time
feeling free to make massive changes to doctrines and policies at any time,
apparently based mostly on convenience to church leaders and their personal preferences
and ambitions.
There
have been many strikingly different versions of the gospel in the 200 years
since the 1820 beginning of the revelations to Joseph Smith. This makes it
impossible to create a complete description of the gospel in an English
publication, for example. There obviously can be no comprehensive description
of the eternal gospel if the version of the gospel which we see in effect, and as
presented to the world, can change radically every decade. This seems to mean
that we can never have anything more than the two extremes, either only major
generalizations which avoid the details, or a focus on individual small details
of the gospel, but never anything with a detailed, comprehensive sweep, since any
such comprehensive treatment would have to deal explicitly with the dozens of
major inconsistencies between past and present versions of the gospel. By now,
in our information-age scholarship, one might expect to see some wonderful
treatments concerning all elements of the eternal gospel, but that is
impossible with so many built-in conflicts such a study would necessarily uncover
and be required to reconcile.
These
constant, sometimes radical changes to church doctrine and policy have created
wide gaps between the gospel as taught by Christ, and the gospel as
administered by current church leaders. It is my observation and opinion that
the LDS church in 2022 is much smaller then was intended by its scriptural
mission, and that under current doctrines and policies, there should be no
expectation of the church ever getting any larger. Indeed, it actually shrank
in living, active members in 2020 (deaths exceeding converts plus births) and
is likely to continue shrinking in future years, at least relative to world
population, if not absolutely. I attribute this disappointing and faltering
performance to its deviations from the gospel which Christ taught. His version
of the gospel grew explosively throughout most of the known world, while the
current LDS version is small and is barely able to avoid shrinking.
The
problem of the Gathering
In
fact, if the LDS church in its current form had wider influence in the world
today than it has, I believe that could actually be a negative and detrimental
influence. I see it as a close case whether people would be better off or worse
off to accept the gospel as it is presented today. The negative and antifreedom
elements of today's version of the gospel could end up being a net loss for many
people. (At least, many Protestant churches actively promote freedom, rather
than suppressing it for their own purposes and benefit as does the LDS church.)
Why
would the people of the earth want to "gather" to a deeply flawed
church, especially one which has explicitly deleted the "gathering"
principle from its catalog of doctrines? With the doctrinal
"gathering" principle having explicitly been dead for at least 40
years, I'm not sure how mentioning it again a few times in general conference,
as has been done recently, can amount to reinstituting it and getting all the
attendant benefits and blessings. Bringing it back into effect would seem to require
explicitly overturning the last 40 years of preaching against it and canceling
it out. That potential flip-flop in doctrine, which is apparently now in the
trial-balloon stage, would certainly be noticeable and would probably raise a
large number of questions. Many other policy changes would also need to be made to
reinvigorate it.
I
read the Scriptures as designating the restoration of the church as the
mechanism by which a millennial condition will be ushered into the world, as an
expansion of the "Zion" society to be first created by the Mormons.
We have actually seen only the barest beginning of this kind of renovation of
the world in our time, and there is currently no obvious mechanism in place to
take any further steps.
My
goal here is to outline some of the major steps which need to be taken to
adjust the gospel back to its original highly successful form.
An online suggestion
box for the LDS Church:
1. Unequivocally
support creationism. At this point BYU, under church supervision, vigorously
and triumphantly supports atheistic organic evolution, where God is either
completely absent or is hardly more than an onlooker. Certainly, God is not
credited there with being the miraculous creator of all things. (The basic
problem is that it is rather difficult to fully support Satan's philosophies
and, at the same time, fully support Christ's philosophies, as BYU tries to do
in its different and competing departments.) We need to decide which God we worship.
2. Fully, actively, and
unequivocally support the U.S. Constitution and freedom in the United States
and elsewhere. Pandering to tyrants wherever found may seem like good
international business, but it is terrible religion. It teaches and exemplifies
all the wrong principles. I believe Capt. Moroni would be disgusted today with
our irresponsible pacifism.
3. End tithing and the
selling of priesthood ordinances, condemned as priestcraft in the Book of
Mormon, but reinvigorated today presumably because it was so lucrative for the
Levites and Aaronites of the Old Testament church. What we have today is an Old
Testament church, not a New Testament church. Christ died to end tithing and
priestcraft and all its evils, and we have brought it all back. Remove the
supposedly mandatory nature of tithing and replace it with the original
free-will, member-directed contributions. The net amount directed to spiritual
and social improvement would probably be much larger than it is today without
the religious tax and regulations that are so restrictive and discouraging to
Christian observations and impulses.
4. Actually respect the
teachings of the Scriptures rather than turning so many of those teachings
upside down through reinterpretation and policy changes.
5. Become an active
force for good, mostly through charity channels that improve society, where
members are in charge of directing their charity as they see fit. The Old
Testament concept of tithing and the New Testament concept of charity are
mutually exclusive doctrines, policies, and attitudes – one necessarily excludes
the other.
6. Push back against
the typically satanic/Marxist state religion rather than accepting it and
joining with it. The church today seems to want to be the cooperating partner
and state church of every government no matter how corrupt and anti-freedom
those state governments might be.
7. Push back against
the people who call themselves progressive Mormons, who might more accurately
be called "pagan Mormons," who want to make the church a pagan church,
including taking over or merging with the existing church. This is exactly the
same process by which the church was damaged in earlier times, when it merged
with the pagan Cult of the Emperor Constantine, combining elements from each
religion.
8. Distribute most
ownership and administration and priesthood powers and options back to the
local level -- the ward and stake level -- as they once were, so that they
could operate autonomously as before. This would accomplish numerous
improvements. The church has obviously found it convenient and profitable to
centralize almost everything, including charging enormous sums for ordinances
which should be free, and that has allowed them to do such things as accumulate
the $100+ billion in liquid assets without bothering to mention to the members what
was going on, or what they planned to do with those resources. We can probably assume
that the headquarters decided that if they told members what they were doing,
the members would complain and lower their contributions accordingly.
If the local members
had control of their ward buildings and real estate again, as in the past, they
might very well choose to use the buildings for educational purposes, partly to
counteract the destructive ideologies and practices of so many of the public
schools that affect the children, and partly to better teach and advise the
adults on how to counteract those same ideologies and practices of today's
corrupt governments.
Presumably, one of the
important reasons why the church chose NOT to return control of the buildings
to the local members was to prevent this very freedom-promoting kind of
activity. If American church members make it obvious that they are interested
in promoting freedom for themselves and others, that might make the church less
welcome in many countries where freedom is greatly constrained. But, of course,
with the church refusing to promote freedom in any way, in Utah as well as in
the rest of the world, they are distorting the meaning of the gospel to a very
critical extent. In my opinion, freedom is the first principle of the gospel,
and nothing else works without it, philosophically or theologically. If the
church administration is willing to go along with every bad policy of every
tyrant in the world, that makes the church leaders complicit in those
anti-freedom policies and actions.
There could actually be
a benefit to the central church if that $100 billion in liquid assets were
distributed away from the central church. As it is, no matter how much the
church leaders might enjoy counting their gold in their counting house, the
amassing of all that wealth in one place makes the church a natural target for
endless lawsuits from church members and outsiders alike, especially including
greedy and lawless governments. It appears that the church's total political
passivity is mostly a consequence of its trying to maintain its accumulated
wealth safe from the predations of people outside of church headquarters, even
though by doing so it badly warps the teaching of the gospel, through bad
precept and example. I assume most of those lawsuits and attacks would never
happen in the first place if there were no significant assets available, as would
likely be true in a local ward or stake where contributions were quickly
distributed to those in need rather than held in vaults for the sheer joy of
looking at them by the leaders.
The local leaders are
not paid, in contradistinction to the self-appointed professional priests
assembled in Salt Lake City. That means the local leaders live very close to
the real teachings of Christ. Their main problem is being required to enforce
the rules issued by the central headquarters, even when those rules are out of step
with the real gospel.
Philosophies of men and
mingled (or mangled) scripture
I think Christ would be
disappointed and perhaps even disgusted with the church as it stands today. It
is now the epitome of a church which "teaches the philosophies of men,
mingled with scripture," with those scriptures taken indiscriminately from
both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and intermixed, in spite of the
radically different doctrinal paradigms involved from the two eras. The church
currently has doctrines made of Jell-O which can be stretched in any direction
desired. One might expect the eternal gospel to have fixed principles,
applicable to every time and place in the Earth's history, but because those
supposedly fixed principles have indeed been stretched in every direction, the
church today cannot present a fixed theology to the world. Presumably that is
why we spend so much time talking about history. As several scholars have
noted, "the LDS church does not have a theology, but only a history."
But being embroiled in detailed history seems to make it difficult or
impossible for us to raise our vision enough to understand the correct eternal
principles.
Seeking and
distributing all truth
I believe the purpose
of the gospel is to bring us all truth.
John
16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all
truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear,
that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
D&C
93:23 Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even
the Spirit of truth;
24
And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are
to come;
25
And whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who
was a liar from the beginning.
26
The Spirit of truth is of God. I am the Spirit of truth, and John bore record
of me, saying: He received a fulness of truth, yea, even of all truth;
27
And no man receiveth a fulness unless he keepeth his commandments.
28
He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is
glorified in truth and knoweth all things.
It is certainly useful
to be reminded occasionally that we should read the scriptures and have faith
in Christ, but if that is all that the church does, it is doing the absolute
minimum, in my opinion. In order for the church to be an instrument of bringing
us all truth, and leading us to all truth, as I think it ought to be, it would
have to be doing at least 100 times more than it is today. The church at least
ought to be competing with Oxford Press and the New York Times to bring church
members and the world all the truth it is possible to supply. As it is, the
newspapers in Utah have been taken over by the anti-freedom political left, and
BYU does not even have a publishing organization. BYU Press died decades ago,
ending one important avenue for publishing truth. Deseret Book basically
controls the market for religious literature about the Mormons, so that even in
the religious realm, the options to seek after truth are very limited.
Suggested
Research and Actions:
Hundreds of
major projects are needed:
-- on Building
Up Zion, and
-- on Truth and
Righteousness, generally
Most of our
social institutions need to be renovated or replaced, or competing institutions
created.
About $2
trillion in Christian charity is needed in the USA annually (about 10% of GDP,
replacing corrupt and wasteful government functions). Someone needs to organize
it.
A few examples:
●Health
– Provide verified COVID
information and treatments
– Minimize abortion and
maximize adoption so earth can be home for as many as were assigned.
– Encourage mental health
improvement through offering new social direction and purpose
●Ideology
– Contrast the communist
manifesto and the U.S. Constitution
– Analyze identity
politics/cultural fascism
●Social Improvements
– Support freedom
everywhere vigorously
– Improve moral and
ideological education at all levels
– Greatly lessen inner-city
dysfunction ("The poor are always with you" and there are bad
political effects for everyone if the poor are not lifted up.)
– Integrate migrants
into gospel programs to maintain freedom and prosperity in the US
●Education
– Renovate BYU, then
other schools
●Government
–
End all corruption in Utah, then elsewhere
●More esoteric topics
– Should the Millennium
have started 22 years ago in the year 2000, i.e., 6000 years after the
beginning?
– Will the human race
end in 100-200 years from a degraded genome, and related massive genetic
disease and chronic illness? Could/should the church intervene?
– Christ's church
imploded sometime before the 300-year mark. After just 200 years, the
latter-day church seems to have imploded already.
As in the days of
Enoch, the Gospel once had the power to move mountains. Why is it so feeble
today that it cannot change a single thing of importance to improve our society?
Does it need to stay that way? Can we really do nothing of significance
ourselves in Christ's name? But instead, we need to have him come and do
absolutely everything for us? I don't think that intentional passivity was the
intent of the gospel we have been given.
For more information concerning the church's shortcomings today, and thoughts on how to resolve them, see the 2020 book Is the Church As True As the Gospel? A Constitutional Approach available on Amazon.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like your comment came and went. Sorry I missed it. If you were willing to comment through another channel, I would be interested to hear your reactions. My Gmail address is Kent.Huff in case you're still willing to participate. I see the LDS church as in a state of decline, not the growth pattern that ought to be expected. Perhaps there is something that can be done about it.
Delete