The Myth of the Hyphenated Mormon

Over the last few years I have watched as more and more individuals seek to carve up the church into self-imposed groups and sub groups. Undoubtedly this has been going on in one form or another since 1830, I am now seeing more and more of my peers preface their religious affiliation with a hyphen. They are becoming more and more Liberal-Mormons, Conservative -Mormons, Post- Mormons, Cultural-Mormons, Progressive-Mormons, Mormon-Feminist, Libertarian-Mormons and LGBT-Mormons. By doing so they are showing that their temporal affiliations color their faith. I need to come out and say it, there is no such thing as a hyphenated Mormon. There is no such thing because all these monikers are of a temporal making and are the result of the influence of the philosophies of men. There is no such thing because these philosophies are not eternal, and as CS Lewis once said so beautifully "anything that is not eternal is eternally out of date." Of all the insights into the true nature of man that came to us through the Prophet Joseph Smith, one of the most significant to us is that before we came to this life we accepted the laws and covenants that would be associated with our temporal sojourn. The Prophet was very clear “The first step in the salvation of man is the laws of eternal and self-existent principles. Spirits are eternal. At the first organization in heaven we were all present and we saw the Savior chosen and appointed and the and the plan of salvation made, and WE SANCTIONED IT" (TPJS, p. 181, emphasis mine) In the April 1898 General Conference President Snow shed a little more light on this issue. In speaking our pre-mortal existence he says “we had rendered ourselves worthy to come upon this earth for the purpose of securing those blessings that could only be obtained the laws pertaining to our current state” (Conference Report April 1898, P 12) The Lord, in presenting the Plan of Salvation would have explained the laws of marriage, the law of chastity and all the other covenants and commandments attached to the gospel. That we accepted these covenants and commandments is evident in our being here. The hosts of heaven understood that the keeping of these laws of mortality was the key to continued progression. This means that those who now argue in favor of modern entropic morality once accepted the covenants, the law of chastity and the laws of marriage they now seek to be free of. As an example of this idea of mingling scripture with the philosophy of men and preaching a hyphenated faith, Sister Joanna Brooks, who is becoming famous for her quest to "modernize" Mormon thought and celebrate homosexuality as a righteous norm, recently proudly proclaimed “…thousands of progressive LDS women and men today call ourselves “Mormon feminists” — rejecting parts of Mormonism that promote inequality while holding to affirming elements of our tradition.”[i] In other words, a hyphenated Mormon seek to be Mormon as long as they can limit what aspects of the Gospel, and what commandments they are going to keep, recognize or defend. Just what they will take from their gospel buffet is is subject to their temporal myopic wisdom. Elsewhere another Latter-day Saint lamented concerning the Lords laws of family and the position taken by the Apostles of the Lord on Homosexuality: “I hope the church will have a change in doctrine, that the membership will have a change of heart… If they can’t wrap their arms around it, they really will be left behind.” [ii] So with that in mind we read the following from the Proclamation on the Family which states the revealed will of God “We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.” This is nothing more than the Law of Chastity, an eternal law that is binding upon every individual who has ever taken upon them the name of Christ. One cannot follow Christ fully; one cannot emulate the Christ if they break this law or rally their support on behalf of others who celebrate the breaking of this law. To do so is to ignore that the Christ has said that he “cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (D&C 1:31). To get around this many in the church have just taken to denying that sin is sin. If the wisdom of man accepts that a thing is tolerable and even praiseworthy should not the church adopt an acceptance of said thing order to progress in the world? No, the path of Christ would requires us to teach the importance of keeping the law and to act as the Christ would act if he were here with us now. If the path of Christ is discipline and obedience to the laws Father, anything less than our best effort to do the same, given we have taken his name upon us, is sin. The Proclamation on the family, according to Elder Packer of the Quorum or the twelve, is “a guide that members of the Church would do well to read and to follow.” The proclamation is sent directly from the First Presidency of the Church and as such we as Latter-day Saints know it to be from God. We must view the Proclamation in proper context in order to understand why the self-imposed temporal labels are so foolish in light of the church. Luckily we don’t have to look far, Elder Marion G Romney makes clear the importance of following the Prophet and his anointed leaders: “Today the Lord is revealing his will to all the inhabitants of the earth, and to members of the Church in particular, on the issues of this our day through the living prophets, with the First Presidency at the head. What they say as a presidency is what the Lord would say if he were here in person. This is the rock foundation of Mormonism. If it ever ceases to be the fact, this will be an apostate Church. But it will never cease to be the fact. When the Prophet Joseph Smith was asked what the difference was between the Latter-day Saint Church and the sectarian churches of the world, he said, "We have the Holy Ghost," by which he meant that by the power of the Holy Ghost the will of our Father is revealed to the minds of the leaders of this Church. So I repeat again, what the presidency say as a presidency is what the Lord would say if he were here, and it is scripture. It should be studied, understood, and followed, even as the revelations in the D&C and other scriptures. Those who follow this course will not interpret what they say as being inspired by political bias or selfishness; neither will they say that the brethren are uninformed as to the circumstances of those affected by their counsel; or that their counsels cannot be accepted because they are not prefaced by the quotation, "Thus saith the Lord." (Conference Report, April 1945, pp. 86-91) I mention the Proclamation and the Law of chastity, because these are two things in which many self-proclaimed hyphenated Mormons refuse to recognize, yet their importance is a recurring theme in the Gospel. If the law of chastity applies to a young man and woman, it applies to everyone. If it is a sin to abuse the procreative powers for one, it is a sin for all. If marriage is an eternal law and institution and the Proclamation is very clear that it is, to seek to undermine it or alter it (and thereby cloud the understanding of future generations) in the name of temporal intellectual enlightenment is a sin for all. For a covenant person to teach anything other than the gospel, or to reject the teachings of the Brethren in favor of a temporal creed and self-imposed political or social distinction, is an act of rebellion against God. The master once said “if ye love me, keep my commandments”. There are many today who seem to say “If you love us, change the commandments to fit our desire, and we will keep them”. They also seem to say to the master “we love our understanding of your laws”. Christ is said to have distinguished himself in the premortal life by his diligence and precision in keeping the commandments and covenants of his father. In this life we are expect to do the same. To follow the example of the savior is to do the will of God, even when that path seems hard or unfavorable to us. This requires being rejected by the world. When we stand at the bar of God, there will not be any questions sent to us of how well we were able to criticize the apostles or how many people read our blogs. The questions posed to us will be primarily concerned with how well we kept the laws and covenants we entered into. Then they will shift and ask why, given our opportunity, we were not more diligent in seeking to know the things of God more clearly. The Father will ask why we chose to judge the eternal with a temporal lens instead of utilizing the tools of wisdom and discernment available to us via covenant keeping. These will be tough questions to rationalize. In the end, when this ignorant present is past, when we look back on our lives we will see that we all had the same rules. Each member of the church upon baptism enters into covenants. Those covenants are the same no matter what land you live in or what your personal inclinations are. When members move on to the temple, there they make more covenants that are also uniform upon all men, throughout all generations. Your covenants may be worded differently, but they are the same as the ancients. (TPJS, P 308) Ultimately, there are only two types of Mormons, those who take their covenants seriously and strive to live them, and by doing so accept the cross of Christ and despise the shame of it, and those who treat the covenants lightly or not at all. Our goals here are to learn to mold our desires in a fallen state to the will of God. Does anyone really believe that those things that we desire in the fallen state are the same as our desires when we dwelled with God? Or that these desires will be the same when we have a perfect view of the plan and our place in it after we pass on? We accepted the laws of the plan of salvation before we came to this earth; this shows our desires. The Lord has provided us the Gospel and the Holy Ghost to remind us of our true nature. Our temporal associations and allegiances will only last until we pass through the veil, after that all that matters is how diligent we were in keeping our promises and covenants. We must not be lulled into the fallacious notion that would have us believe that we are defined as individuals by the philosophies of men. And we must never use the philosophy of the natural man to judge the eternal gospel and church of Jesus the Christ. Elder Neal A. Maxwell said it best “ Yet the scriptures inform us “the natural man” is to be “put off”. “He” certainly should not be “kept on” because of a mistaken sense that the natural man constitutes our individuality”. (BYU Speech, 31, march, 1991) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [i] Brooks, Joanna, 5 Myth about Mormonism, August 5, 2011, WashingtonPost.com [ii] Healy, Jack, Gentle dissent on Gay Marriage in Mormon church, June 11, 2012, the New York Times, nytimes.com