Why are children of gay couples not allowed to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

There was a policy change sometime in the past two-ish years that really upset some people both inside and outside the church. The policy change made it so that children of gay couples were not allowed to be baptized until they turned 18. 

There is a lot of reading in various places that you could do on this topic. Some of it is good, some of it is not. I hate wading through that crap so I am not going to find it and quote it, but instead I want to share my personal feelings on this topic.

My church sends this "army" of really nice men and women around the world giving away free books and doing all kinds of free service, sacrificing 1 1/2 to 2 years of the prime of their lives to try to convince people to renounce their previous lifestyle and become members of the restored church of Jesus Christ by being baptized. We don't spend that much time talking about what could prevent an investigator from being baptized, and I think a lot of people don't realize that you actually do have to qualify for baptism through an interview process. 

If you are married and your spouse does not agree with you getting baptized, you do not qualify to be baptized. 

I see this policy change with the children of gay couples as super similar; basically, the church is very, very pro-family to the point that if it will risk causing serious contention in important family relationships, church policy is that it would be better to temporarily not be baptized.

Remember, we have this doctrine that everybody in the entire world will get the chance to be baptized, either while they are alive or by proxy after they are dead! Remember that the great majority of God's children on the earth will receive this ordinance by proxy, so apparently, though the ordinance itself is essential, there might be conditions that make it worthwhile to wait.

Children who are not baptized are welcome to attend and participate in sacrament meeting, Sunday School, Primary, and later in the youth programs. Nobody is excluded from the social function of the church by not being baptized (though one will not be able to hold a church calling until being an official member - but there are lots of jobs in the church that are not technically "callings"). Honestly, the majority of people at church do not even know who is or is not baptized (or excommunicated!) around them at church. It doesn't come up particularly often in conversation. If a baptized member takes the sacrament, it is like renewing their baptismal covenants. If a non-baptized person takes the sacrament, it's meaningless. If an excommunicated person takes the sacrament, that's...well, that's not good.

In a way, this policy acknowledges that gay couples raising children together are family units. That is a much more progressive thought than it might seem at first glance.

I like that the church is trying to minimize and avoid feelings of contention within homes, even at the expense of delaying (note that delaying is not the same as limiting!) access to the gift of the Holy Ghost and church membership for some people. It is bittersweet, but it attests that family relationships are really the most important. 

I finished President Nelson's Book of Mormon Challenge today

Today I finished reading the Book of Mormon. It was a challenge given by the prophet to all the women of the restored church of Christ to finish reading this book before the end of the year. By the way, I am also on schedule to finish reading it (aloud) in Czech by the end of the year.

We were specifically asked to mark each verse that speaks of or refers to the Savior.

This turned out to be somewhat problematic. Sometimes the scriptures are clearly referring to Jesus Christ. Sometimes, well...they aren't.

There are two very important things that I remember from when I did early morning seminary (which basically meant I woke up at 5:15 every morning through High School and studied the scriptures with my siblings and a really nice seminary teacher, except for the year when I was in France and we did a "home study" program where we met once/week at the church. Two of the other three years seminary was in my house and my mom was the teacher. My last year of seminary the bishop's wife (who was Japanese) a few miles away from us was the teacher and I drove there every morning with my little sister.):

1. A major theme of the Old Testament is being able to turn even some of the most awful situations into something good.
2. Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, is Jesus Christ.

The name of the God of Israel is יְהֹוָה/yhwh. It means "He is/He causes to be." This occurs over 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible. It's called the tetragrammaton, and the TLDR version is that this word got warped into Jehovah in English as a combination of the word yhwh and the vowels in the word addonay (which can refer to lord as in, like, the lord of a manor, the ruler of something). And the King James translators basically always translates this word to "Lord" (only 7 times out of 6,800 does the word "Jehovah" appear in the KJV).

Apparently most scholars think these things:
1. the Israelite's ancestors (like in the book of Genesis), the Canaanites, and other Western Semites worshiped the god "El"
2. the Israelites later began to worship yhwh/Jehovah
3. ...except when they didn't; some Israelites worshipped yhwh/Jehovah from early on
4. much later, yhwh/Jehovah was seen to be the same being as El

So, back to my read-through of the Book of Mormon. I decided early on that I was going to try my best to only highlight passages that unambiguously had something to do with Jesus Christ.

A concise(ish) latter-day saint understanding of the identity of God is like this:

• There is an all-powerful supreme being called God. His name is Heavenly Father. In the latter-days, we call him Elohim. I haven't studied this word in as much depth as I need to. But I do know that it's both a plural noun (!) and it takes a singular verb (?). Weird.
• Heavenly Father is a member of an organization called the godhead.
• It is made of three separate, distinct, unique people: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. They are not the same being.
• But all of them have the same, totally united ultimate purpose: bring about the immortality and eternal life of mankind.
• The Holy Ghost is a person of spirit. He does not have a body. Which is weird. But this allows him to fulfill his own specific mission.
• God the Father is the father of our spirits (and as such, there must also be a God the Mother, but we don't know very much about her, which is frustrating to me).
• We lived with God the Father before we were born as his spirit children. We are all spiritual siblings.
• God the Father's firstborn, only-begotten son (the only mortal child he has) was Jesus Christ.
• Jesus Christ was foreordained to be the Savior of the world.
• Jesus Christ was perfect and sinless.
• Jesus Christ was born into a human(ish - I mean, a human would never be able to suffer for the pain/sin of the world and life to tell about it) body as the literal physical son of Mary. (Remember how above I mentioned that we are all the spiritual children of heavenly parents? Well, we are the physical children of mortal parents, who are actually our spiritual siblings. So is Jesus Christ - except he's also the literal son of God the father.)
• Jesus Christ suffered for all of the pain and sin of the world. This is called the atonement. It was basically almost all accomplished during his great intercessory prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, but he also sealed this act by his death upon the cross.
• Jesus Christ was resurrected into a perfect (i.e. not mortal) body.  
• If we want to be forgiven of our sins, we will do these things:
• have faith that Jesus Christ's atonement is real
• repent 
• take upon ourselves the name of Christ and prove it by being baptized
• receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (remember the third member of the godhead previously mentioned? This is basically a promise that if you strive to keep the commandments, you can literally always have a member of the godhead with you, helping you)
• endure to the end: basically, rinse and repeat this cycle. We don't get baptized again, but we take the sacrament in church as a symbol of our renewed vow to keep our baptismal covenant (this is why it a. does not bother me that non-believers do not take the sacrament and b. not only that - it sort of does bother me for non-believers to take the sacrament! They aren't supposed to.)
• When we pray, we pray to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. 
• When we pray, we can sometimes talk about how great Jesus Christ is, and thank Heavenly Father for sending him. This is done all throughout the New Testament.
• There is a rare case when it's appropriate to pray to Jesus Christ directly, and that is when he is literally with you. He has a body. If he literally stood next to you in his mortal body or his resurrected body, it would be appropriate to worship him. 

So yeah. Back to my recent reading.

I had a really difficult time highlighting places that were definitely, unambiguously about Jesus Christ sometimes. Whenever the Book of Mormon referred to "the Lord", I highlighted it. When it was just "God" and it was not really obvious that it was Jesus Christ from the context (like, if it says, "God descends to redeem his people, it seems obvious it's about Jesus Christ. But it's not obvious in like, vocative cases. O God! Is that O God Jesus? Or O God the Father?)

I want to read the entire standard works and highlight it this way:

References to Jesus Christ: pink <-- because it stands out the most

References to Heavenly Father: yellow <-- because it seemed appropriate and is a common highlighter color

References to the Holy Ghost: green <-- because green is the color of life, this world, this earth

References to God that are ambiguous: blue <-- because blue rhymes with who

So what I am doing now is going back through all the pink sections that I highlighted (by the way, I went through seven highlighters) and underlining in a metallic gel pen these references:

Within the references to Jesus Christ I found that there are many cases that actually include:

- references to God the Father 

- references to the Holy Ghost

- references that are ambiguous about whether or not they are only referring to Jesus Christ

Some common ambiguous examples are: 

"the spirit of the Lord" - if Jesus Christ is "the Lord", then why is the Holy Ghost called "his" spirit? Is it the Holy Ghost? I am not sure.

"the Lord God" - is this God the Father or Jesus Christ?

I don't see how the scholars' understanding of the Israelite worship of Jehovah contradicts with the idea that Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament, though footnote nine of this article seems to indicate that? I personally don't have a problem with considering the Israelites were a bit misguided in their concept of God, even if they were the "chosen people." 

Actually, I rather think that there is evidence in the Book of Mormon that perhaps the ancient Jews did worship Jehovah. Here is why I think that:

Nephi was a Jew. He was born in Jerusalem to Jewish parents about 100 years after Isaiah, the great Jewish prophet, lived and preached. I really like Isaiah, by the way, even through the weird language of the KJV. I think I will like it more reading it in Czech, though. But that is just a hypothesis as yet.

On the first page of the Book of Mormon, Nephi describes how his father prayed "unto the Lord." (1 Nephi 1:5). Was Lehi praying to Jehovah (i.e. Jesus Christ)? I think he was. 

And I think it's evidence of his Israelite traditions that somewhat blurred the line between Jehovah and God the Father - or made them be the same thing, or perhaps before Christ's first coming - his mortal ministry - maybe people were supposed to pray directly to him (I think this is wrong, but I don't have evidence for why yet)?

Then on the next page, Lehi says, "O Lord God Almighty" which probably is that term "shaddai" which occurs 48 times in the Old Testament both in conjunction with the word El and yhwh. I think this word is specifically chosen to evoke the idea of power, supremacy, might, the ability to deliver and sustain etc. Does this refer to Jesus Christ or God the Father - and more importantly, did Lehi himself know who he was addressing? And beyond that, does it matter? If both Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are totally united in purpose, aren't they both "almighty"? 

So yeah, I observed that there were numerous examples of Nephi and his family praying "unto the Lord" throughout 1 Nephi: 

All of these refer to people praying to the Lord:

1 Nephi 2:7

1 Nephi 2:12

1 Nephi 5:9

1 Nephi 7:17

1 Nephi 7:21

1 Nephi 7:22

1 Nephi 8:8

1 Nephi 8:9

Then between these chapters, Nephi sees the vision of the Tree of Life in which he is shown Jesus Christ. I think it's safe to say he learns something about the nature of God. 

Examples that follow include other people praying to the Lord (not Nephi):

1 Nephi 15:8 <-- "have ye inquired of the Lord?"

1 Nephi 16:24 <-- he did inquire of the Lord

1 Nephi 16:32 <-- they did give thanks unto him

1 Nephi 17:8 <-- Nephi was literally talking with the Lord in this case

1 Nephi 18:3 <-- here ambiguous about whether or not he was literally talking with the Lord

1 Nephi 18:21 still praying to the Lord <-- the only example after his vision where he is praying "to the Lord"

1 Nephi 21:22 <-- reference to "the Lord God"

1 Nephi 22:7 <--- another reference to "the Lord God"

I have not gone through 2 Nephi yet to check for other ambiguities in Nephi's references to God. I do know that it isn't until 2 Nephi 10 that Nephi's little brother says Christ's name is Christ. After that, the references to Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon are significantly less ambiguous, which makes some sense; the Nephites had the plates of Nephi with his writing. They would have studied it. 

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I find it really interesting to study the scriptures in this kind of detail. It is deeply fulfilling to me. I don't expect everybody to "get" this, or to need to study the scriptures like this in order to have a good experience, but I really feel like clapping my hands for joy because there's a place for me and my weirdness in the world of gospel scholarship. 

I wish there were a "quad" corpus so that I could use other corpus analyzing tools to try to search the scriptures, for example there's this really fun "word mapper" tool that's pat of Lancsbox. But this wordcruncher tool is a pretty interesting tool that I've started to play around with a bit. I know that manually reading through the scriptures and highlighting the sections for Jesus Christ is valuable in its own way, but computers could do the job in a much more thorough, analytical, objective way that might be able to show us surprising things. Anyway, the constant invocation from the prophets is to "search the scriptures" - not merely to "read" them. 

There's this other really cool tool called the LDS Scripture Citation Index. It shows all the scripture citations from extant general conference talks from 1830-present (with a few breaks). From this tool, I learned that the most frequently (by a LOT) quoted chapter of scripture for latter-day saints is definitely the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5. That makes sense, and I find it really interesting. 

Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith. He is the God of the Old Testament. In the temple, we learn that Jesus Christ is completely obedient to Heavenly Father in every single minuscule detail. The way to eternal life and salvation is to accept his atonement, be baptized, and continue to walk down the covenant path. I have a testimony that Heavenly Father knows and loves us, that I have access to him through prayers in Jesus Christ's name. I know that Heavenly Father is the director of the plan of salvation. I know that Jesus Christ is also God and that his atonement is real, and that I can draw upon its healing and cleansing power when I sin by sincerely repenting. The scriptures repeat over and over that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is the Christ. When I sometimes feel like that seems impossible, I can read these words and receive renewed testimony in God's strength and power. One of the sweetest messages of the Book of Mormon is that God is capable of accomplishing his work. What a hopeful, positive message. I believe it.

Why would you choose to live in hell?

I don't really believe in hell, or at least the traditional version of it.

It's just too ludicrous. Satan and his devils with horns and pitchforks surrounding some giant lake of fire and brimstone. This is, quite literally, the stuff of comic books.

Ludicrous things are quite often very funny, and I can't help but laugh at this, nor its caricaturesque counterpart of pearly white gates guarded by Saint Peter (I guess that's the stereotype? It's not even really "a thing" in my own personal religious/cultural experience, not even in jokes), a befuzzled God with a halo and white robes, bunches of winged angels standing around on clouds and playing harps - etc. But right now I want to talk specifically about damnation and hell.

The scriptures are full of references to what at first glance is something similar to the above depiction of hell. Here are some examples:  "A lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever and has no end" (2 Nephi 9:15-23) or the beast from Revelation being taken and "cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone" (Revelation 19:20) or how, "upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup." (Psalms 11:6 even though I don't really like the Psalms that much yet) - or in reference to the days of the Lord's vengeance, how the "streams [of Zion] shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch." (Isaiah 34:9) Later, how "the fearful, and the unbelieving, and all liars, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, and the whoremonger, and the sorcerer, shall have their part in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." (Doctrine and Covenants 63:17).

And, just because I am pretty sure you probably just skimmed the above paragraph, know that the point I was trying to show was that images of a brimstoney hell are completely laced throughout the scriptures.

But I'm sure it's not literal.

I am also quite sure that this particular kind of hell as described is not a post-final judgment experience, but rather, that we experience this when we are separated from God.

Like, now.

During our every day existence.

Brimstone is sulfurous. It's this nasty smelling stuff present in hot springs all over the "Holy" Land (I personally think this title for this land is the biggest misnomer of all and wrote a tiny bit about my time in Israel here, though it is highly abbreviated and doesn't really express this idea perfectly - but the unholiness of the holy land deserves its own rant, not here, not now). It is mentioned in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and other various cities throughout the Old Testament. It's a symbol of God's displeasure and anger.

Does God's anger only come upon us after we are dead and judged for our actions?

No way.

If the God of the Old and New Testaments and other books of scripture is real, for sure he interferes with our lives while we are yet living. Or at least, he has with some people, and certainly has the power to interfere in our lives, even though that might seem difficult to believe in our "modern, educated world" that is allegedly devoid of angels, communication with God, revelation (hint hint: it's not devoid of those things!).

The meaning of "damnation" has changed over time to imply something final. But in the past, and in its use in the scriptures, it actually described the state of being that is the opposite of salvation, which we know exists in various degrees. It's a spectrum, guys - which means it's infinitely personal. That's the only way it makes any sense. If you are not "saved" then you are "damned" - i.e. hindered in your progress and privileges. But precisely where you're hindered totally depends on you, yourself, where you choose to be on the spectrum of salvation.

And it really is up to you because salvation itself - the possibility of being saved - is freely given to all mankind through Jesus Christ.

It's for everyone. "He cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam. And he suffereth this that the resurrection might pass upon all men, that all might stand before him at the great and and judgment day. And he commandeth all men that they must repent, and be baptized in his name, having perfect faith in the Holy One of Israel, or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God." (2 Nephi 9:21-23)

Basically: Jesus Christ, aka God himself, came down to earth, lived a perfect life, suffered individually for our sins (I referenced my time bubble theory in this post - I really don't know how this is possible, but I have a big imagination and God is all powerful so I can just trust/believe that it is), and all of us - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US including nonbelievers, sinners (ahem that's all of us), murderers, etc. - Every single human that has ever lived and ever will live will be resurrected into a perfect physical body, which is very different from what we experience in this life (I reference my displeasure at having to live in this crappy human frame in this post as well).

I know we will all be resurrected, and that after resurrection we will be judged.

If we want to receive salvation, i.e. be saved, the steps are clear: repent and show your faith by being baptized. And then continue to walk on the covenant path. Keep going. Keep repenting. Keep showing your faith. Keep growing it. Keep fighting the good fight.

The scriptures talk about two different, distinct kinds of death: physical death and spiritual death (or sometimes called "the second death"). Physical death is when our spirit is separated from our bodies. You know, the death we always think about when we hear the word "death."

But the other death is when our spirit is separated from God. This is "spiritual death." Because of Adam and Eve's choice in the garden of Eden (well, however literal that story is - which is also a totally different topic for another day), we have the possibility to experience both of these kinds of death. We make our own spiritual death by what we do, what we think, and our daily actions. Paul talks about this, by the way. "Some are "dead" while they "liveth"" (1 Timothy 5:6).

"And if they will not repent and believe in his name, and be baptized in his name, and endure to the end, they must be damned; for the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has spoken it." (2 Nephi 9:24)

Clearly, this scripture infers that you can be damned while you are still alive. You can choose to separate yourself from God. You can feel great agony and misery now. You can choose these things.

But why would you?

Does that make any kind of sense?

If you had the chance to be happy now - wouldn't you take it?

I think the Old Testament in particular talks a lot about damnation and hellfire and that kind of stuff for this reason: it works. Nephi, who lived about 100 years after Isaiah (so, right in the thick of this damnation and hellfire rhetoric. Yay ancient Israel and the Mosaic law - not! So glad I live now, not then) talks about how it works, about how he continually had to preach to his people in this way.

I am not sure that this rhetoric of damnation and hell works so well today because it has become such a caricature that it is almost impossible to think seriously when confronted with it. It's easy to be dismissive of this image. And it's also easy to think, "well, a loving God isn't going to be this way." It almost sounds like some kind of temper tantrum - that's how I would describe how "God's anger" seems to me when I am not thinking introspectively and seriously about what a paternal kind of anger that is fully justified and real must actually be like.

But the thing is, I have a firm understanding of hell as guilt, hell as anxiety, hell as the feelings of anguish and nastiness that well up within yourself when you willfully separate yourself from God. I understand that and experience it. It is a constant struggle to me to repent.

Hence why I go to church. At church I can literally be "baptized" again - except it's not through baptism, but taking the sacrament. A symbolic gesture, a physical way of re-covenanting with God, recommitting myself to try my best to do his will. 

The "chains of hell" are metaphorical. They are the feelings which overpower us and bind us to misery when we choose not to repent and come unto Christ, and accept the salvation he's willingly offering us. The scriptures talk about how the devil will "rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good." (2 Nephi 28:20) He also talks about how he uses other strategies like pacifying and lulling us into carnal security - i.e. a state of not caring about anything. Or how he flatters us and tells us that everything we hear about religion is just one big lie.

It's not a lie.

Salvation is free.

We can turn ourselves - our problems, our worries, our anxieties, our fears, our physical suffering and pain, our personal individual hell that we naturally and willfully create for ourselves - over to God. We can ask to be forgiven, and he will forgive us.

Because he loves us.

Do you really think that a loving God would make a plan whereby the majority of his children would not receive salvation? Does it really make sense that we are here and then our bodies get old, decay, crumble, and eventually rot away - that all of this is meaningless and we have no reason to hope or to try to become the best kind of people we can, and to create the best kind of world that we can? Is our existence puny, pathetic, and meaningless or are we joint-heirs with God, with the possibility of exaltation and limitless creative powers (!!!!) and glory? What makes sense? Everything around us testifies that God is real and loves us.

If infinity is real, in one of the infinite possible scenarios that could exist, God must be found in one of them. Why not in this existence?

Why not search your feelings and find a space to trust that God exists and loves us? Even if it weren't real, faking it would make you happy.

How much more so then if it were real?

It is real!

We bring hell upon ourselves when we willfully turn away from God. Sometimes this is not really our fault (see Limited Agency Theory). I have firm faith that God will judge us fairly, and that we will all end up somewhere on the spectrum of salvation, limited in eternal progress only by what we ourselves fairly and rightfully choose. So let's choose God!

I think that it should be very easy for most of us to understand what faith looks like in a digital world. We engage in this kind of action all the time. We post things out to some Great Unknown Nether - a black hole - a nebulous connected labyrinth of wires and electricity connected all over the world (well except maybe not North Korea) - with a firm hope that somebody out there will read what we have to say. That our message will make it to its final destination - but even more specifically, that it will be understood by the recipient. I feel especially close to this metaphor of faith being like digital communication because I love to blog and I love to interact with far away, distant friends who live on the other side of the world yet somehow, for some reason, seem to really get my mind (Nowadays I feel that I could probably end that really lonely poem in that aforementioned post with, "oh! Right there!").

But even if you're not a blogger, I mean, we all send emails and texts and write social media posts all the time. We never (or hardly ever) see the recipient open them. We just know they will be read. We know that someday, what we write will be received. We trust that it will be understood, and perhaps even reciprocated.

Faith is just like this, only it's not about typing on a keyboard but about prayer. But even if you can't or won't bring yourself to like, kneel and pray, either silently or aloud (and maybe you're limited, and it's not your fault that you can't do these things), you can still direct your thoughts to the possibility that God loves you (ha! Just by reading this I tricked you into doing so! Master Manupulatrix mwahahaha). You can direct your curiosity and wonder towards considering that God wants you to be his, that you matter, that this world and this life matter, that there is meaning. You can, in your mind and in your heart, start to think about these things.

After you think about these things, you can wonder to yourself if they could be true. You can pretend that they are true for just a moment, and this is how: you can create the words in your mind to ask God for yourself if they're true.

And he'll answer you.

He speaks your language, and I'm not talking about crippled languages we can speak.

I mean he knows exactly how to communicate with you so that you will understand and get the message he wants you to have, and because he loves you, he will!

I had a dream the other night which was a great comfort to me. (By the way, apparently this is the way that I best communicate with God, perhaps because it is the only way that I will shut up enough to listen? Or - perhaps because I think in really strange metaphorical ways, so a dream with completely unrelated images can end up making sense to me, carrying a precise, direct message straight to my heart. Also, I'm not insane: I am fully aware that my dreams are not all divine. Sometimes they are just random neurons firing. But I really have experienced, and quite recently, an assurance from God that he cares about me, given to me through a really personal dream that I just know would make sense to nobody else, therefore it is not worth typing out for the world to mock.) 

Just try it. What's there to lose but your pride, and in any case, isn't that something worth losing?

Thoughts about Jesus Christ

If you are reading this post and are in a snarky mood, I invite you to go stop and take a walk in the woods or some calm, quiet place first before continuing on. The words I want to write are earnest, sincere and serious. How can you hope to understand the tender feelings of my heart if your head is full of cynicism and sarcastic GIFs and memes?

No, I mean it.

I'll wait.

This isn't going anywhere.

It'll be here when you're actually ready to read it someday.

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.......dum de dum dee dooo....

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No, seriously, if you're grouchy or tired or not in the mood for whatever reason, just come back some other time.

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Okay, so I hope that gave you some time to quiet your mind and yourself, and hopefully now you are ready to hear my words.

I want to write about this theme: "I'm not stupid or crazy AND I *love* to talk about Jesus Christ, can't I please tell you why?"  My husband, who never comments or posts on anything online, actually answered this loaded question on Quora: How can intelligent and logical people believe so heavily in the Mormon church? "Because even though it's nastily worded it's actually a very good question from an external perspective and I think it has a good answer." 

Like my beloved husband, I am also a highly educated person. I have had many opportunities to travel throughout the world and the United States, meeting new and interesting people, being exposed to a wide range of physical and intellectual viewpoints. I speak three languages proficiently, and four if you count Czech, which I speak poorly. I am definitely not a stupid person.

I am going to explore this idea about how smart, non-crazy, non-fanatical people like myself can have faith in Jesus Christ, albeit from a completely different perspective that is not about following a logical test, the way my husband explained it.

I sometimes feel as though I have a stamp with the word "Unsatisfactory" in my hand. I find myself constantly metaphorically stamping many things in my life with it. Generally what gets stamped is not so much other people or even necessarily myself, but rather these things that could be loosely called "conditions of mortality." Limitations of my physical body: UNSATISFACTORY. Inability to communicate what I'm really feeling: UNSATISFACTORY. Trying my best to do what I believe is right, but still failing: UNSATISFACTORY. I don't hate myself per se, I am just well aware that UNSATISFACTORY touches every piece of my existence.

The idea that I am not just a random bunch of cells and electrical impulses but that my existence is eternal and has meaning is intuitive to me; it is not something I think I could convince anyone else to believe, even if I tried to throw as many words as possible at them. It is the prerequisite to all my beliefs and values. Rather than clumsily try to explain how I know that I am known and loved by God as his child (especially since becoming a parent myself), I will trust that you have the ability to temporarily suspend your disbelief in this idea so that you can understand the other things I want to share.

I believe that before I came to this earth, I lived as a spirit somewhere else. I was a daughter of God then the way I am now. I could not progress and really become like God until I had gone through specific experiences only possible outside of his watchful parental care. For some reason, a physical body was a really important part of this plan. I suspect that leaving God's presence was a painful decision for me. I decided to come to earth to experience many things essential to my eternal progression (probably the most important being to choose to marry in the temple) and to prove whether I would choose good instead of evil.

I strongly dislike the feeling of separation from God. It basically sucks. It is miserable. Apart from a few very special, sacred moments, is more or less the constant state of my mortal existence. I would describe the feeling of separation as a kind of void - like I know that I am not whole yet. That there's something incomplete and missing, just beyond my grasp. I would also paint this idea as much more of a spectrum or range than black/white or on/off. It's as though there are times in my life when I feel closer to God than others, but have I ever literally been in his presence while on earth? No. Unfortunately not.

No matter how hard I try, and how often I repent, I'm constantly plagued by conditions of mortality: a weak mind which can never perfectly remember what it ought to, clumsy management of this physical communication interface (saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person in a very dorky way), a tendency to become angry and rebellious and proud, etc. A kind of blindness when it comes to other peoples' needs and feelings, try as I may to always be aware and caring.

Basically, tldr: I'm pretty #@*& imperfect. 

God is perfect. He perfectly knows and loves me. I am well aware that there would be no way to return to my heavenly parents on my own. I am so imperfect, and imperfect, unclean things cannot be in God's presence. 

Therefore: my loving Heavenly Father who wants me to return to him also provided me with the way to return. 

That way is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ has a lot of names. When you call him (by the way, I sometimes get sick of capitalizing the "H" - it is jarring both to read and write and I've noticed recently that they don't always do this in the scriptures, so I'm taking that as permission to also not have to do that) by this name, Jesus Christ, you can sometimes be painted as a fool or a fanatic by those around you. They might see you as a haughty evangelist or a deluded sentimental fool or worst of all (in my opinion, because I probably overvalue intelligence) somebody who is incapable of logical thinking or reason. This is why I often prefer to use words like "my Savior" or "the Redeemer" or "the Lord." They seem less mock-able. But I want there to be no ambiguity here, so I will use his name. 

Jesus Christ is my older brother. Before this earth was created, he volunteered to take upon himself the sins and pains of the world. He chose to be a sacrifice so that the laws of justice could be met. He came to this earth, lived a life completely devoid of sin, and in him the law of Moses was fulfilled. He was and continues to be despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. 

He is acquainted with my grief, my very lonely, very personal grief that quite often comes from these "conditions of mortality." I have a stamp across my forehead that reads UNSATISFACTORY. He takes a damp cloth and washes that ink away when I repent. I don't know all the details about why it had to be him, or how it is possible for a male person to experience all the female-specific pains that exist. But who am I to tell God why it should or shouldn't be this way? If I really believe in an all-knowing, all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, almighty Father in Heaven, surely I can be obedient and put my faith in Jesus Christ, the vehicle by which the plan works, even if I don't fully understand why or how it could work.

By the way, I have lots of theories about it, many of which come from a lively imagination and a love of Fantasy/Science Fiction. Like maybe Jesus Christ used a time bubble in the garden of Gethsemane (the exact location of which remains unknown, but I have visited several of the posited locations). I guess if that mattered, we would know about it. Maybe we will know about it someday.

The consistent message I have received through a lifelong reading of the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price and the words of the living prophet on the earth today is that Jesus Christ is the most important part of the plan of salvation. Jesus Christ's sacrifice for me is the reason why I can hope to someday truly become whole. Jesus Christ was perfectly obedient to Heavenly Father, even going so far as to be baptized even though he did not need a remission of his sins. Jesus Christ knows my name, and literally all my imperfections. He wants me to repent and believe his words, which are repeated on nearly every page of all the scriptures, something I had not previously noticed before starting to study them with a greater degree of focus. 

Jesus Christ is not some scary statue in a musty and dimly lit Cathedral, or a mossy effigy on a stone cross. He is not a hateful, snide meme or a political jibe. He is a perfect friend who knows me, and loves me. He is my example. He's also perfect, so he knows all languages - including the language of my heart. He is also a perfect computer programmer - really, he is the Creator, so of course creating a measly program would be within his grasp. He's a perfectly patient and kind listener, and he fully gets me. I feel better about myself the more I read about him and come to know him. I really love him. I would give away all of my sins to know him. How great would it be if I could convince all the people around me that this is true?

It is quite painful to live in a world surrounded by people who do not feel the same way, who esteem something I treasure so highly as something trifling, or irrelevant to modern life, or worst of all, a silly deception from the past designed to oppress mankind. I strongly dislike conflict, so living in a world like this with friends like these is painful for me. I think I would have made a terrible full time missionary. I think my heart would have been repeatedly broken to pieces. I am glad that it was not required of me to serve that way.

What I do feel required to do is actually a huge joy, though! I was recently urged by the living prophet of God on the earth today to pray to understand, cultivate, use, and expand my spiritual gifts with a promise that as I do so, I will change the world. 

Even though I often feel self-loathing for being this way, I can recognize that I'm a pretty verbose writer. I really like to write my deep thoughts, and these are the deepest ones I have. I scratch my head a little bit in consternation about the impression I had to share these thoughts, but that is what I feel is the right thing to do. I hope that I have been able to express to you what I really mean in a way that you can really understand. I hope that I can inspire whoever chooses to read these words to discover your own individual worth and value before God, and that this implicit seed of faith will lead you to become curious and want to know more about how our lives have meaning and purpose, and that there is a way by which we can be saved and eventually perfected. That way is Jesus Christ.

Limited Agency Theory

Latter-day saints should listen to deterministic atheists, because they might have some important ideas about God that we are missing.

(Then again, they might not, since it's pretty much impossible to describe a belief system around what one does not believe. And since atheism is in no way whatsoever any kind of organized belief system, it's hard to make generalizations about what one does or does not believe. In every case, those generalizations end up being meaningless. But hey, it's a sufficiently hook-ing opening line, enough to raise your eyebrows and compel you to hear me out, which was the actual point of writing it!)

I am going to make the case that our agency on earth is far more limited than we latter-day saints usually tend to think, and that limited agency is actually a "tender mercy" - an individualized blessing directly from God that demonstrates His divinity and love for each of us on the most immensely personal level that is only just barely imaginable.

We know that what causes us to make choices is not always something within our control. I think that most latter-day saints will resist this idea, probably because we so strongly value our agency, but this is an obvious fact that we must all come to face at some point. Here are some specific examples:

• Parole is more likely to be granted to prisoners by a parole board who has just eaten.
• Mass murderer Charles Whitman had a brain tumor which undeniably affected his choice to murder his mother, his wife, fourteen other people (including a pregnant woman) and eventually himself.
• (halfway through the article, the guy is named "Alex") ...and this guy's recurring brain tumor also definitely affected his choices.
• You are more likely to buy products (or help people) when you smell something good

Here are some more common-sense, broad examples:

• We can't make choices for the people that we love. We can't force our children to behave, and neither can we force our siblings, parents, and spouses to do what we want them to do.
• We are born with a set of individual, unique DNA that determines all kinds of things about our physical body: now that I am born, I can't alter that DNA (well...maybe in the future that will be somewhat possible with DNA splicing, but...) to change all kinds of things about myself which affect me and the choices which I make on a daily basis.  
• So far as we know, we don't choose where we are born, to whom we are born, when we are born, the circumstances of our families - all kinds of things about our environment are the way they are, and they aren't ours to choose. Yet these have bearing on our choices and actions.
• I learn many things which I can't remember perfectly. I have to learn them over and over and over, and even then sometimes I don't really fully understand what I've learned. My memory (or lack thereof) definitely affects my agency.

Our environment and our genetics play huge, huge roles in the everyday decisions we make, and failing to admit that is pretty prideful, in my opinion.

I had an awful nightmare the other night, the specifics of which are just a little bit too personal to recount. I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but it is truly horrible to wake up and then feel worse. In this case, the thing that was so horrible was a significant loss of my own personal agency, which also had to do with my memory. In my dream, I had no memory of x happening to me, but then I discovered that it had, and I was livid. I am not exactly sure what is the role of memory in relationship to agency, but it has to be connected in some important way.

On Sunday I got up and bore my testimony of limited agency being evidence of God's love for me. I testified to a group of 200-some-odd people that I strongly believe that God designed the exact circumstances of my life - including my environment, my DNA, all these things that work on, pull at, tug, and often limit, my personal agency. If this life is a test, which I believe it is, then the maker of the test knew what He was doing. He wasn't going to give me a test which I would definitely fail. In fact, because He loves me, and wants me to succeed and pass the test and return to live with Him again, this test He gave me has the greatest chance for me to succeed. Therefore, the circumstances which limit my agency are evidence that He thought them through beforehand, and it's okay to let go of some of the piles of typical Christian guilt that we (read: I) so often lay upon ourselves (myself) over our (my) human condition.

The test is simple: will we follow Jesus Christ?

We probably don't talk that much about our limitations because it would be really easy to make it sound like an excuse to sin. After all, if we don't have agency, or if it is severely handicapped - if all my choices were predetermined - then what does it matter if I become a whore or rob from the bank or willfully murder somebody or...? I do still scratch my head to observe my friends who do not believe in God or consequences of life after death, who are still very devoted to following their own moral codes, most of which intersect very closely with my own. Why? I know that keeping commandments very often results in temporal blessings - like, if you don't sleep around, you're way less likely to get an STD, for example. But if I did not have a strong belief in God, I imagine I would justify my sins a whole lot more and be much less apt to make righteous choices.

(This, by the way, is probably why a loving God put me into a latter-day saint family. He designed the test so that I would have the best chance to succeed. But I digress.)

Also we are limited as to our knowledge of our limitations. Sometimes we know them, but other times we actually don't. In a way, it is good for us to not preoccupy ourselves too much with thoughts about our limitations, again, to avoid making excuses for not choosing the right. 

To paraphrase a conversation I had recently about a person who was really getting on my friend's nerves:

My friend: "Do you think that someday, after we die, I'll get to talk to him and this condition of his will be removed, so that we will really be able to talk and I'll really be able to understand him?"

 

Me: "I think...I think that is what it will be like for all of us, actually. I think after we die, and are resurrected and receive perfect bodies, with perfect brains, we will finally, finally be able to successfully communicate. I think we all have some kind of "condition" - not just this person, but you, me - everybody around us."

I like to think this conversation was a great comfort to my friend. It's comforting to me that I don't have to bear the burden of all my awkwardness alone.

Christians in general also probably don't think a lot about the limitations of our agency because we've been told we won't be given trials that are too much for us to handle (except for like, the trials which cause us to die, I guess). Still, for people like me who are more apt to lament the fact that we are so imperfect, I think recognizing that my limitations were predetermined is a hugely comforting reassurance. It gives me permission to trust that things will be okay in spite of what it seems. Deterministic atheists inherently believe this. Things are the way they are, and that's okay. It's as it should be.

Elder Hales said, "Agency permits us to make faithful, obedient choices that strengthen us so that we can lift and strengthen others." I think if we had perfect agency we would be able to successfully do that perfectly at all times. In other words, I strongly believe that the difference between mortals and God is that God has perfect agency and we don't yet. Because we are limited by our knowledge, we don't have the perfect ability that God has to minister to others. The point is that we should always strive to be more godlike, in spite of these limitations; this is why the Christian message is so often completely centered on what we can do with our agency, which is to repent and to come unto Christ. This theme must be repeated several thousand times throughout all the scriptures, both ancient and modern.

I think 2 Nephi 9:25 is evidence supporting this, "people have limited agency and that's okay," theory. Basically, here Jacob suggests that if there's no law, there's no punishment for x, and without punishment for x there's no condemnation for x, and without condemnation for x, the mercy of God through the Atonement of Jesus Christ covers x. What is x? All of the pain and suffering humans have ever felt but not been accountable for, either because they were pain from our human condition, or pain from sin for which we weren't fully accountable because we didn't have the knowledge (aka the law) - or the capacity to have that knowledge.

Later in the chapter is that verse about the vainness and the frailties and the foolishness of men, for when they are learned they think they are wise and hearken not unto the counsel of God. Why should latter-day saints assume that this knowledge does not also include gospel knowledge? For my entire life I have felt like as saints, we assume that because we have the restored gospel we have perfect agency. 

We definitely don't. 

Our agency is definitely limited still because we are human. We should take a page out of the deterministic atheist's book and recognize that our agency is limited, and what a blessing from God that it is. I don't think I'd do very well in a test of perfect agency. I'm not there yet.