Why Attend?

A pagan friend of mine asked me tonight, "Why do you attend the Mormon Church if you don't believe the same things they do?"

To explain this all too frequent phenomena (frequent meaning that I am not alone in this position), the initial answer I gave was essentially this:

• Because I need the Priesthood Authority, and the Church has it.
• Because I need the Temple Endowment and Ordinances, and the Church has them.

The rest, I tolerate.

Afterward, upon more deliberate consideration of the hard question, and fearing its weighty implications, I determined to re-examine the situation and give it a more complete treatment.

The powerful thing I forgot to express is that God is not done with this Church as a useful vessel. There will come a time when an outpouring of light and revelation occurs and it will be necessary for people of my sort of mind to be present to receive it.

I have faith and hope in a Reformation occuring within the Church, a return to our Restoration roots. Our doctrines are not so far gone as to be lost -- they are merely being hidden away at this time, out of the gazing eyes of the saints. In fact, they are sitting out in the public eye instead. If the Devil has infiltrated the Church to such a degree that missionary work is more effectively performed by Anti-Mormons and Secular histories, then so be it. At least secular histories have no bias and nothing to prove -- perhaps this type of convert will receive a purer portion of the Gospel than has been had in a good long while.

Misunderstood LDS Temple

Although I totally dig the Temple, I think the ever increasing trend to Mainstream the Church has created a strange and unnatural dichotomy. The difference between the "Sunday" Church and the Temple is so stark and vast that I believe it actually hurts many who go through the Temple for the first time, or even every subsequent time.

The Church has worked hard to present itself as a mainstream flavor of popular Christianity, perhaps as a way to gather converts (or maybe as a way of appeasing the populace of Utah who are born into the system unwittingly), and in so doing, it has cast aside (if not altogether out) many of the doctrines that mark our distinctive theology and enlightened understanding of the after-life.

Steps have been gradually taken to modify the Temple Ceremony in order to minimize the impact, but they are in a tough bind: The Temple contains eternal, unchangeable ordinances. Straying too far off the mark would invalidate them. So only miniscule and gradual changes are made here, where the rest of the Church can be recast to fit any Public Relations need by publishing a few new Sunday School manuals, and merely omitting the interesting (offending) parts.

I do not believe this is a deliberate attempt to throw off the Restoration, but that cultural differences and generations of born-in-the-covenant members have failed to receive the further light and knowledge which was had by their grandfathers. They are making a sincere effort to do what they believe is right, to retain members, to gain converts. But anyone who studies Church History soon learns that the official histories of our day are like Fairy Tales compared to what has actually transpired.

The funny thing, I think, is that if the modern Converts, with the aid of the Internet, could start deciding what would help them, instead of those born into the Church, we would have far less cover-ups. I, for example, am a convert. In the process of investigating the Church, any thinking young person would naturally study it the same as any school subject - that means turning to Google.com for many, and we become painfully aware of the Cover-Ups involved in history. But, those who do, and yet join anyway are not ashamed of the things being covered up. The cover-ups themselves are what we see as shameful, and cause more harm than the doctrines, history, and practices supposed by the "Molly Mormons" to not be faith-promoting.

Give us the meat. Everyone knows that the meat must be eaten before the milk (dairy) or a meal isn't Kosher. Don't give us the pearls before swine line. We aren't swine, and take offense at being considered unclean animals. Meat is presently not given at all, it must be sought after on the Internet and in old books.

If the Church would embrace its "strangeness", and encourage study of things like the Temple, in a respectful manner, many valuable preparations could be made by studying the Old Testament, or extra-biblical Jewish histories and commentaries, for example, which would make the Temple a comfortable and spiritual experience for the first time patron.

The focus should be on converting people instead of getting converts. Getting a convert is nothing, if they are only going to fall away or feel uncomfortable upon future study and research, and feel betrayed by misleading statements received in their "youth" in the study of the Gospel.

I was reading several people's anonymous comments on the Internet about their reaction to their first Temple experience. It is extremely plain to me that numerous people go through the Temple, tolerate it, and due to peer pressure are prodded to lie and say that they enjoyed it. It gnaws at their minds and they either deal with it until they become numb to it, or some time, maybe years later, they fall away.

It just shouldn't be that scary. The answer isn't to make it less scary by altering the ceremony, it is to make it less scary by teaching and preparing people for the experience, by gaining true converts to begin with. If they feel more comfortable being a Protestant, let them BE a Protestant. We don't need them occupying space in our chapel if they are not interested or open to the Fullness of the Restored Gospel and if they are preventing those of us who are truly there to Fellowship, Worship, and Learn, they are stumbling blocks to the Saints.

That may sound harsh - But rather than throw them out, lets try to really convert them.