Every day outside the Memorial Union at ASU, various different groups and clubs set up tables to promote various causes and events and recruit members; the LDS Students Association, organized by the Institute Council (of which Rebecca is a member this semester) lately has been among them. This semester though, seemingly every day there have also been “street preachers” and doomsayers shouting omens and carrying signs of damnation to the non-repentant, and railing against everyone from drunks, to homosexuals, to people who believe in evolution, to Muslims, Jews, and yes, Mormons. To these people, to “fear God” means to literally fear retribution for one’s sins; this, therefore, is the feeling they try to instill in those to whom they preach. Moreover, to them the “truth” that they teach is exclusive—they and they alone have any truth, and any and all who disagree or believe otherwise are sinners and are damned for doing so.
I’ll start with what it means to have “truth” in the teachings of one’s faith. We, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, believe ourselves to be the only Church whose teachings are true in their entirety; we don’t pretend to know everything, and there is nothing that we are expected to believe that we do not have either divine revelation or Scriptural reference to confirm, other than what we know we don’t know. (One of these things for example is the existence of a “Heavenly Mother;” we do not know anything else about Her, but that She is not a member of the Godhead, and that her relationship to our Heavenly Father is the model for what exists to us as celestial and eternal marriage.) We believe other faiths and other churches to generally not be entirely untrue, that many of them have some truths in what they teach; but they also teach some things that are untrue, that have been lost over time as a result of incorrect traditions. People such as Zoroaster, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama, Confucius, Laozi, and Martin Luther all had partial truths in their teachings, and had a degree of divine inspiration in their reformations of the prevalent faiths in the times and nations in which they lived; we believe their teachings to be worth studying, so as to enrich our own understanding with those truths and to foster and enable mutual acceptance between us and those who are a part of different faiths and cultures. In the words of Joseph Smith:
We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. (Articles of Faith 1:9)
This does not compromise our belief that we alone have the entirety of the revealed truths of God, but it in no way is a condemnation of those who subscribe to a different faith or creed than us. We believe that finding common truths is the strongest pathway towards helping others to gain an understanding and testimony of the fulness of the Gospel and its truth; and I believe that by the end of days, all of those who believe in even the slightest part of this truth will have the opportunity to learn and accept it in its entirety. This is why missionary work and work for the redemption of the dead are so important to us as a Church: we want every soul to have a chance to be saved, and we believe that Jesus Christ will withhold His atonement from none who will accept His Gospel, keep His commandments, and covenant in obedience to His commandments and in acceptance of His redemption.
Moving forward to what it means to “fear God.” The Bible Dictionary clarifies that “fear of the Lord” is synonymous with “reverance, awe, [and] worship,” yet literal fear is “unworthy of a child of God, something that ‘perfect love casteth out’ (1 John 4:18).” Fear is an aftereffect of sin, and draws one away from repentance and into darkness; it is a tool of Satan to plant feelings of self unworth and make one feel as though repentance is not available to them. This is a lie, because Satan ”[abides] not in the truth, because there is no truth in him” (John 8:44). The words of Nephi make it plain that there are none who are forbidden from taking part in His atonement if they repent of their sins:
Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price. Behold, hath he commanded any that they should depart out of the synagogues, or out of the houses of worship? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all men; and he hath commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance. Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden. (2 Nephi 26:25–28)
Finally, tying it all together: simply the fact that these people preach damnation rather than love, repentance as a threat rather than repentance as a binding covenant between man and Christ, shows their lack of understanding of the true nature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The title of this post is an excerpt from Doctrine and Covenants 79:1, in which a Brother Jared Carter is called to “go…from city to city…proclaiming glad tidings of great joy, even the everlasting gospel.” The Gospel and the message of the atonement of Jesus Christ is a joyful message, one that brings continuing gladness to the heart and soul and teaches that “all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel” (Articles of Faith 1:3). Yes, repentance is to be taught, but not on pain of eternal damnation; rather as something that is ever available to all of the children of God, and on reward of eternal life in the presence of God the Father and Christ the Son. These verses from the Gospel of John, the words of Christ to the woman accused of adultery, are very powerful to me every time I read them:
When Jesus had lifted himself up, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. (John 8:10–11)
Christ does not condemn. It is not the place of man to judge other men of their sins; and to those who will hear His word, Christ says, “neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”
I have a strong testimony of the power of missionary work, of calling others to come unto Christ through love and repentance, by the power of the Spirit. The words of Christ in section 50 of the Doctrine and Covenants confirm this for me:
Verily I say unto you, he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the Comforter, in the Spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? And if it be by some other way it is not of God. And again, he that receiveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? If it be some other way it is not of God. Therefore, why is it that ye cannot understand and know, that he that receiveth the word by the Spirit of truth receiveth it as it is preached by the Spirit of truth? Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together. (D&C 50:17–22)
Missionary work is successful because the Holy Spirit is real, and because it testifies of the truth of the Gospel when it is present with the person who is teaching and the person who opens his mind and heart to be taught, and this is cause for them to rejoice together in thanks for the knowledge they gain. If any man teaches or learns of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by any means other than the Holy Spirit, “it is not of God.” I testify that these things are true; that the Church of Jesus Christ is restored on the Earth today through Joseph Smith and continued by Thomas S. Monson; and that Jesus Christ lives, and His atonement is absolute and available to all who will leave their sins behind and follow him. I say these things in the name of the Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ; Amen.
Still complaining about "state secrets?"
May 18th, 2009All I have to say is: I TOTALLY FRIGGING CALLED IT. From Wired:
This is EXACTLY what I predicted the Obama administration would do: continue certain bad policies of the Bush administration, so that the courts could do their job and throw those policies out the window—giving the case against the Bush administration on certain topics, such as detention of “enemy combatants” and warrant-less wiretapping, a much stronger footing.
Let’s see what the EFF thinks of this.
Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, EFF, George W. Bush, President, wiretapping
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