When we betray the gospel we are supposed to live

I know first hand of a family whose judgments are so harsh and unilateral. When their daughter made choices that were totally against their expectations, members of the family reacted with much contention. Some wrote her letters declaring her 'evil' and stupid. Others reacted with such reproach: accusing her of being a bad mother, a bad daughter, a bad person. Others took much delight in talking about her behind her back--receiving great pleasure and feeling more righteous and superior as they discussed the 'perplexity' of her choices and actions. They loved to discuss how 'damaged' her son would be without the benefit of the gospel that they purport to live daily. They abandoned her. They distanced themselves from her. Because she is not 'living the gospel' anymore. Some even told their children not to have anything to do with her family lest they be influenced by the way they live their lives.

At first I distanced myself from this family not wanting to be involved because of the bitterness, contention and foolish manipulations and one-uppers. I myself had been the target of these murmurings, backstabbing and self-centered manipulations. 

But one day, my thoughts began to focus on her. I loved her. Always did. Long ago, when she began to distance herself from me because of the manipulations of her family, my heart just broke into a million pieces. She was like my little sister---the one I always wanted to spoil. And suddenly, she didn't like me anymore. After many years, this time, I thought about her....for many days.

I decided to make an exception and try and open up to the possibility that perhaps she may still love me since most of her family had distanced themselves and she to them.  I hope that she and her family will feel of our love because what we feel for her and her son is deep and sweet. 

When we treat each other harshly because they are different from what we expect them to be, we betray the very essence of the gospel we purport to live. Christ, in Gethsemane, went below all things. He understands the Ethiopian girl born 4,000 years ago who was sold to a husband before she was 12. He understands the Polynesian boy who was raised to be a girl during the times of Kamehameha. The Saviour can see the point of view of those who feel disenfranchised, those who feel expelled from their families or villages, those who were born in places I do not even know existed from eons of time ago, those who live on the other side of the world and those who will yet be born into a world of the future that I cannot even imagine. He knows all of us. And still he loves us. In Gethsemane, he carried on his mortal body and regal stature being the Son of God ALL of our sins, all of our sorrows, all of our weaknesses, all of pain. And then he drank the bitter cup. And died for our sins---later to rent the palls of death for our sakes. He did all that because of love. That is His gospel. That he died. And lived. 

We betray the very gospel that he himself taught us. Note these words that the Saviour declares:

Behold I have given unto you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me. (3Nephi 17:13....)

And then the Saviour goes on to say, from the 27th verse:

And know ye that ye shall be judges of this people, according to the judgment which I shall give unto you, which shall be just. Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.

The bold and underlined words declare how we are to 'judge' one another: even as the Lord judges us, so shall we judge one another. That is, we must treat each other with love just as the Saviour feels for us. Because with whatever judgment we mete out towards others, the same will be meted out to us. That is a sobering thought. 

We seem to be so harsh towards those who are among us-- those who are our family, those who are within our wards, those who are like us, members of the true church. It would seem as though we are mandated to be kind to others outside of our faith because we need to bring them into our fold. BUT, within our own families and fellow saints we exact so much more judgement and recrimination. When someone decides to think too deeply or ask questions or choose to do things differently, we are so quick to render judgment AND harsh reactions. We tend to be more angry, more distant, more aggressively mean. Is this how we are to bring the 1 sheep who strayed back to the proverbial fold? If we throw rocks at the missing sheep, it will surely never come back to the fold. And moreover, the consequences of our harshness and meanness slingshot back to us. We miss out on beautiful, sweet experiences of expressions of unconditional love. We miss out on the opportunity to love freely without borders, conditions, requirements or demands. As it is, all have missed out on building loving relationships with a member of their family whom they love and who loves them. To say that they have retreated because it 'pains' them to see their loved one live so differently from their expectations is ludicrous at best. Because if they see with loving eyes, they will discover that their loved one is still the same person. Oh how Satan deceives us! Sanctimoniously dire reactions  only give birth to further distance and further darkness. We betray the gospel we think we know. We are mere hypocrites: blinded by the severity of our recrimination and bitterness.

In taking this stance, we betray the gospel. We betray the powers of the atonement. And we crucify Christ anew. And all I can say is that this reaction is merely proof of how little we truly know about the Atonement and what happened in the garden of Gethsemane. As long as our hearts are full of pride and harshness, we cannot see the face of the Master. I record these words to remind myself how easy it is to betray the gospel we must live...to warn myself from time to time. Because it scares me to think how easy we can all be led to such bitter waters when we are thirsty and our reserves are gone. Hence it is from the Master himself that we can draw everlasting sweet waters from whence we shall never thirst-- given to us as we take advantage of the fruits of the Atonement through humility and repentance. 

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14)

Evil. Did it begin with Eve?

 "Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict 'It is evil'". (Ayn Rand...from Atlas Shrugged)

I always assumed that the word "evil" came from Eve--the one who partook of the forbidden fruit and thus set the mechanism of death into motion. But I may be wrong. The etymological root of this word is obscure at best....German, Scandinavian or Hittite. Nevertheless, countless intellectuals, scriptorians, philosophers and others have written treatises about this subject. 

It used to be clear to me that the consequences of Eve's initiative comprised specifically of the beginnings of evil--the separation of man from God both spiritually and physically. Within this platform, evil to me is simply that---anything that takes man's focus from our earthly imperative; that same imperative that we all joyfully anticipated: to return to God...to be like Him and to be his heirs. Anything that compromises or undermines my focus is therefore evil.

Moral relativism I think, is the overall belief of most Christians and unwittingly, as members of the the LDS church we seem to have developed our own 'code' of behaviour: a set of standards whereby we can measure ourselves against OTHER people so we can feel better about ourselves. We have a code of behaviour that is a product of our burgeoning culture, customs, prejudices and even our own language and rhetoric. Yes, even that annoying cadence that comes out of us when we pray or speak at church. Some of these standards are well into being absolute. 

We like to think in terms of 'drawing the line' and 'gray areas'. We like to have specifics....a list of don'ts. A way to judge and a very clear definition of 'sin' that will make us be comfortable as we pit our goodness against our neighbours'. It's our favorite pastime. I guess I am severely turned off by the latest Relief Society lesson on 'drawing the line' and the ladies in the room defined the absolute as "doing everything by the book and script" ie, if the prophet says so, then it must be done with exactness--that you are either in or out and you either obey or not obey. These arguments later gave birth to such things as "what you are NOT supposed to do on the Sabbath" and "our bleak temple attendance" and such things that you are not supposed to do...a list of prohibitions and specifics that begs for simplicity and ease in judging what is 'right' and 'wrong'. There are no 'gray areas' they say. I begin to sweat. Clouds swirls around my head in a dizzying fashion and suddenly, my thinking patterns turn to confusion and chaos. Why is there no clarity or order? And why does it suddenly feel murky in that room? 

It occurred to me that it was because no one really understands what the lesson is about. Drawing the line---choosing to be on the Lord's side. The problem is, even after we've made that choice or 'drawn that line', there are STILL choices left on the Lord's side that we have to make that  consistently remind us that even in our zeal to obey, we cannot obey with accuracy and sharpness and we cannot always see the lines clearly. Most of all, we cannot 'draw the lines' perfectly. That's because we are mere mortals---subject to errors, mistakes, blindness, limitations and yes, imperfections. So is the god we worship who is loving and kind going to just, after choosing His side, allow us to make mistakes, transgress and suffer the consequences of our stupid choices or languish in the consequences brought forth by the dumb choices of other people we love and whose lives intersect with ours? Is that fair? And once we've chosen to follow Christ, does it stand to reason that we can suddenly see all things clearly such that what is correct and congruent to Christ's and the Father's will will be so clear that we can no longer make a mistake---that there will be no gray areas? If members of the church are arrogant enough to believe this, then Christ's atonement will have been totally unnecessary. Suddenly, I feel as though I was surrounded by Pharisees and Sadducees. 

Having said that, these are the absolute truths that I hold on to and cannot compromise on their veracity because no matter what others say, these will still be true. No culture, time, change in social mores or attitudes can change these truths.

Absolute Truth #1: 

The existence of the Godhead: Elohim, the father, Jehovah, Christ the Saviour and Redeemer of Mankind and the Holy Ghost, a personage of spirit. The truth about the nature of the Godhead is important because we can have a clear understanding of our relationship with them, who we are, what we are entitled to and how we can communicate with them. 

I am now going to list some of the important absolute truths that we can learn just from knowing the nature of the Godhead:

1. That the world was not 'created' but organized from 'something'. I know that we are referred to as 'intelligences' or individuals/persons of a spiritual form that had no beginning. Hence in that case, we are as infinite as God is and can become like Him. That is our imperative.   (Abraham 93: 29 to end of chapter) 

2. That when God created the heavens and the earth, he organized all 'chaos'--in other words, He is responsible for all things that are in the heavens...and on earth. This means that there are entities that are eternal as he is, i.e., intelligences. Every living thing, every organism, world, planet, system....everything is organized according to His great wisdom and mercy and thus all things testify of Christ and His existence and purpose. (Moses 6:63 and 2 Nephi 11:4)

3.  It is necessary that there be opposites in all things or God would cease to be God. (2 Nephi 1) Men are that they might have joy. And joy comes from righteousness. And righteousness can only come about if there is a CHOICE, in other words, there has to be polarity or choice cannot exist. And because of this great principle and gift, we can experience joy from choosing against evil and wrongdoing.

Absolute Truth #2:

There was an apostasy and therefore a need for a restoration. 

Because of this absolute truth, there are also indubitable events that happened that cannot be disputed and are therefore corollary truths:

1. In 1820, God the Father and Jehovah Jesus Christ appeared to a young Joseph Smith in a grove of trees in New York state. From this sweet simple vision, the Lord was able to restore His church as it was organized during the time he walked the earth as a mortal being. Ten years later in April of 1830, the church was officially organized and given the name "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" to distinguish between the church of ancient times before the apostasy and the now fully restored, organized church of Jesus Christ that functions through priesthood power and revelation.

2. We have a living prophet who leads in the administration and earthly affairs of the church through revelation. We have a quorum of 12 apostles just like the ancient church was organized. All other offices and auxiliaries aid in the administration, edifying and development of its members. The prophet is not infallible. He is human and subject to the same weaknesses and mortal challenges as all of us. But the Lord will not allow His church to fall again until He comes again. 

3. There are ordinances and covenants required for entry into the Kingdom. These ordinances are offered to all those who would accept the gospel and be baptized by those in authority and keys to perform such ordinances. All ordinances are eternal in nature and can only be unsealed through unrighteousness.

Absolute Truth #3

The Plan of Salvation: Need more be said?

Absolute Truth #4

The ATONEMENT

All things begin and end with this. I saved it for last because to me, it is the crux of all things. It is the stuff all things are made of and will be made eternal. The Atonement denotes what kind of personal relationship I have with my Saviour.

All things are to the typifying of Him. All things point to Him and his glorious work. All things do testify of what he has done and will continue to do for us. Studying the atonement gives me the greatest satisfaction in my life. It provides me with context. All things have no meaning until one can see through the fine filter that comes from an appreciation and focus on the Saviour and what He has done for us. The more we gain understanding and appreciation of the Atonement, the better our perspective will be--we will be able to follow the guidance of the Spirit better. 

Is there a place for moral relativism? This is a rhetorical question and perhaps can only be answered if we define what morality is. Good or evil? Right and wrong? Or perhaps the HOW of obedience...the determination between which law will take precedence over another. Or the execution of a principle within the context and limitations of our own understanding. The relativism may refer to where we are on the time line of our existence, the varied human conditions we find ourselves in, our spiritual highs and lows, times of plenty and times of need, youth and maturity, usefulness and redundancy.  Does it pertain to our relative strength and weakness, ignorance or dependence, arrogance and cowardice? Because if such is how relativism can be defined or seen, then there must not be judgment involved. Because it is in these circumstances where we need our Saviour to fill in our gaps: to make perfect our imperfect ways. For without Him, we are nothing and can do nothing. 

That is how I bridge truth and relativism. Because tolerance for all things relative is a two edged sword. We must see each other as unfinished works of art to be finished and framed by the Master himself. And as we await his steady hand, we must see each other as unfinished, unpolished and imperfect....until such a time when the Master, through the mechanism of the atonement can render us perfect and complete. It is only his hand that has this power. Until then, I hold on to my absolute truths and aim to view with tolerance and kindness the multifaceted ways in which man tries to transcend his own mortality and morality. Truth is everywhere. Even in the dark places of confusion and transgression. Because God never really leaves us. And God never ceases to exist.