2007-5-13 09:45:00
The prophet is the supreme authority and will never lead the church astray. The worst sin one can commit is to openly rebel against the prophet and the authorities of the church. If you surrender and obey all will be well, but once you receive the light and then go against the brethren you are in dangerous territory indeed.
The interesting thing about this dangerous territory is this. One of the attractive things about the Mormon theology is that it goes easy on unbelievers and standard sinners. Instead of burning in an eternal hell they are told that eternal punishment is not really eternal, but eternal is one of the names of God so any punishment set up by God is eternal, but the time it will last is limited. Basically the teaching is that when one learns his lesson the punishment will end and the person will go on with his progression. Then too, the punishment is not to burn in fire but a lot of it comes from dwelling with other unsavory characters in the afterlife.
The good part of this doctrine is that it appeals to reason and mind. After all, why would a loving parent like God throw any of his children into burning painful fire for eternity? That does not make any sense to any thinking person who is a parent himself.
Now what is interesting is that Mormon doctrine goes relatively easy on all sinners except one class. These are those who sin against the Holy Ghost. The seriousness of such a sin has extra credibility because it is mentioned by Jesus:
"Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." (Matthew 12:31 & 32)
Now the Mormons define this sin against the Holy Ghost as going against a confirmation of truth one has received from the Spirit as, for instance, happened to Judas when he betrayed Jesus even though he knew he was the Christ.
21 "And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
22 "And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?
23 "And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.
24 "The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that Matt man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.
25 "Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said."
Matthew 26:21-25
Note that this sin was so great that it is better to not be born than to deny the Holy Spirit.
Now here is where it gets interesting. The one seeming example of a sin against the Holy Ghost is when Judas rebels against the divine representative of God on the earth. Even so, it is thought in the church that the worst sin one can commit is to go against the words of the Mormon prophet, the assumed current divine representative on the earth. Many in the church thus see those who are excommunicated for non conformance as being the modern-day Judases that will experience a similar punishment.
Exactly what is that punishment? The Mormon scriptures give additional details and they are pretty scary.
42 "That through him all might be saved whom the Father had put into his power and made by him;
43 "Who glorifies the Father, and saves all the works of his hands, except those sons of perdition who deny the Son after the Father has revealed him.
44 "Wherefore, he saves all except them--they shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, which is eternal punishment, to reign with the devil and his angels in eternity, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which is their torment--
45 "And the end thereof, neither the place thereof, nor their torment, no man knows;
46 "Neither was it revealed, neither is, neither will be revealed unto man, except to them who are made partakers thereof;
47 "Nevertheless, I, the Lord, show it by vision unto many, but straightway shut it up again;
48 "Wherefore, the end, the width, the height, the depth, and the misery thereof, they understand not, neither any man except those who are ordained unto this condemnation."
Doctrine and Covenants (D&C) 76:42-48
And who are the ones who will suffer this condemnation so great that it cannot be put into words? It is assumed it will be those who are excommunicated for not endorsing all the teachings and directions of the authorities of the church.
Consequently, when the standard Mormon gets a little curious and begins to give some clues that he is unorthodox in his thinking other members will often make statements to him like the following:
"You are entering into dangerous territory, brother. Just follow the prophet and forget about these other thoughts."
"Stay away from the mysteries. If God wants us to know any of them he will reveal them through the prophet. If you get something and teach it that runs contrary to the teachings of the church you are in great danger my friend."
"Stay with the simple things like faith, baptism and repentance. If you delve into more than this you may find yourself in rebellion against God."
"Just follow the prophet and you will be safe. He will never lead you astray."
When I was in the church I was amazed at how many times I was told not to "delve." "Delve" was a major swear word in the church. Nothing was seen as being more sinful than to delve into any deep meaning behind most anything.
It is interesting that this attitude runs completely contrary to many Mormon scriptures. Here is just one of them from the Book of Mormon:
"For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come; wherefore, the course of the Lord is one eternal round." (1 Nephi 10:19)
The bottom line is that regular members give full preference to the advice of the authorities over the injunctions in their scriptures and are terrified to even entertain the thought that their minds may be in rebellion against the church and the prophet. They think that if they get any revelation at all it will only be to confirm something already agreed upon by the prophet. If they get anything at odds with the church then it probably came from the devil in an attempt to make them cross the lines toward the unpardonable sin.
Consequently, the seekers in the LDS church are in a very difficult situation. If they seek revelation through the spirit and start receiving anything that is not recognized by the authorities as being true, most become frightened that they may be in great danger if they entertain such thoughts.
But here is what really scares the beJesus out of them. If they meet someone like me and I teach them a few things, and if anything I say that seems unorthodox makes any sense to them they become concerned that they may be heading toward the unpardonable sin and totally shut down and never want to see me again.
Other brave souls will entertain a few unorthodox teachings with the idea that as long as they stay in the church and support the prophet all will be well. These people lead a somewhat dual life. They do some exploring, but keep their deep doctrines to themselves and project within the church the image of an orthodox member.
A third category is those who become disenchanted with the authorities, but not authority itself. These become convinced that the true authority from God does not reside with the orthodox Mormon prophet, but some other prophet who heads some splinter group. This leaning on authority gives some courage to break off, but often to no gain for they exchange one Beast of authority for another. And the new power of the Beast is usually worse than the first.
A fourth category is those who receive definite truths through the soul and are willing to stand up for them for truth's sake, even if it means being excommunicated. The number of these individuals are few for these are they who have found the "way of strength" mentioned by DK. These are they who have discovered Divine Carelessness.
Now this fourth category is found in all authoritative churches and systems, but in this case I am speaking from the Mormon perspective since I have gone through this system and the authoritative hold is so intense.
Most who are excommunicated from the church have tried to keep their thoughts secret and were just caught and forced out. Only a few take a risk that is almost sure to get them in trouble. These are they who are divinely careless and who will obtain the greatest spiritual reward, for they acted on true courage.
Why is it that that few fit into this last category? I know the answer from personal experience. After I was excommunicated I made many attempts to enlighten my Mormon friends and many found what I taught to be of great interest. But then when it came down to taking any action that would reveal this thinking to the authorities they said something like this to me:
"If you are right and there is reincarnation and we receive many chances to progress then I am not in grave danger to stay in the church. If I am mistaken I will be born again and eventually make corrections. On there other hand, if the authorities of the church are right and I embrace your teachings I may become a son of perdition and suffer endless torment with the devil and his angels.
"If there is even one chance in a thousand that the church is right in this then it is too risky to take the chance of receiving such a terrible judgment from God."
These people are like Nicodemus who came to Christ "at night" when the authorities could not detect him. He was afraid the authorities would discover his interest and then exclude him from the kingdom of God. He was afraid to be divinely careless and never received a fullness of the spiritual light.
Here is my story in a nutshell pieced together from the archives:
I made the mistake of "searching the scriptures" and discovered some interesting things therein which are not a part of standard doctrine. One of the rather innocent things I discovered at the time is that there is progression from kingdom to kingdom, not just within the kingdoms as the church teaches.
I wrote a short paper on it, but had a problem in that I had no one to share it with. Then my nephew visited for a time and I told him some of my thoughts and shared my writings with him. He became convinced and was very enthused about it. I told him to be very careful about whom he showed it to or he could get in trouble with the authorities, but he didn't seem worried about it.
He went to his home ward and began teaching the doctrine in Priesthood class and showed the writing to his Elder's Quorum President. He felt the doctrine was harmless and no one would object. Shortly thereafter he was ushered into the bishop's office and within a few days a full blown trial was scheduled with the high council. When he learned that the only witnesses that he could have were members in good standing he thought of me.
He called and asked me to defend him at his trial.
I told him that if I did I would probably be excommunicated too and may lose my wife and kids.
He said: "You got me into this, now you must help get me out."
I sighed and told him I would be there.
I went to his trial with my friend Wayne who was an inactive member, but still an Elder. They were not going to let us in to testify, but using every coercion at our disposal we elbowed our way in and gave our testimonies on his behalf, but of course it fell on deaf ears.
Shortly afterwards, the transcript was sent to headquarters.
As I was waiting for a response from Salt Lake I wrote these words: "At this moment I am still a recognized good stalwart member of the Church. I just got back a few minutes ago from doing my home teaching. My family and I attend all the meetings every week. We have always tried to do whatever was required of us. However, my wife does not support me in this work. She thinks the devil has deceived me. I risk the possibility of loosing her and my five beautiful children which thing causes my heart to sink as much as anything in this world can affect me, but the Lord has testified to me that the things that I write are true and my knowledge is as the perfect day, even though as a man I am one of the weak things of the world. I suppose the day is not far distant that I shall be called up for trial before my friends who shall be aghast to find out what I have written, but I am prepared and the spirit shall be with me and hearts will be touched."
Shortly after this a trial was ordered for me. When they discovered through interrogation that I believed several things that were not part of regular church doctrine the council composed of life long friends excommunicated me.
The interesting thing is that they had to violate their own rules to throw us out for we, both my nephew and I, were obeying all the rules of the church.
I did not have to expose myself and defend my Nephew, but I embraced divine carelessness, took the risk of divine retribution and moved forward.
To be continued.
Go forward with courage, hope and joy, plus understanding, my brother. Train those who work with you with painstaking care, for much depends upon them. Remember always that you do not work alone.
DK, Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 1, Pg 173
Copyright © 2007 by J J Dewey, All Rights Reserved