10 Questions No Latter-Day Saint Should Ever Ask and 10 Reasons Why They Should Never Ask Them
10 questions no Latter-Day Saint should ever ask:
1. If God truly wants my family to be “together forever”, why does He make me pay 10% of my income to the Church before I can enter the temple to be sealed to them for time and all eternity? Money must be really important to Him – more important apparently than having families sealed to each other as quickly and easily as possible regardless of their monetary contributions to the Church. Would it really be inaccurate for us to tell non-members “Your family can be together forever – and it will only cost you 10% of your income”?
2. Speaking of money, why is it that of all the Gospel commandments I should be striving to live, the only one God wants me to meet with the Bishop once a year to discuss is the Law of Tithing? Honestly, it is more of a “Tithing Shakedown”. Why am I expected to go to “Tithing Settlement” every year so the Church can pressure me into giving them 10% of my paycheck, but there’s not a “Treating Others in a Christ-like Way Settlement” every year to encourage me in my efforts to be more like Christ? Why is tithing singled out for a yearly checkup? What is truly most important to God? If we cannot “serve God and Mammon”, why is the Church so obsessed with Mammon?
3. If indeed families are so important to God, why does He implement policies that are so divisive for families where everyone isn’t a tithe-paying member? Why must the groom or bride with non-LDS parents exclude them from their temple wedding? In that situation, why aren’t the couple allowed to marry in a civil ceremony and then participate in the LDS ordinance afterwards so that all in the family can be part of the wedding? Why is the Church only family-friendly for families where everyone is a member? And why does the Church think it is OK to make people choose between Church and family in these situations?
4. Why does Christ say nothing in His own words about many of the unique and distinctive doctrines of the LDS Church? For example:
· If having a “Forever Family” is so important, why doesn’t Christ mention it even once in the New Testament (or, for that matter, in the Book of Mormon)?
· In fact, if being sealed for Time and All Eternity is so essential, why are there only two chapters in all of the Standard Works that explicitly describe it (D&C 131 and 132 – and the latter is really mostly about plural marriage)? There are other scriptures that supposedly reference it, for example “and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers” in Malachi 4:6 and “whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” in Matthew 16:19 – but if that is what those scriptures are really about, why doesn’t it say so explicitly? Why are they so vague about what is really a simple concept?
· Why don’t any of the scriptures mention the endowment ceremony?
· Why am I wearing garments when they are never mentioned in the scriptures?
· Why doesn’t Christ ever talk about the Celestial Kingdom in the New Testament?
· Why is the Celestial Kingdom never mentioned a single time in the Book of Mormon? After all, God took the time to give us the minutiae of the Nephite monetary system in the Book of Mormon - why didn’t He bother putting anything in the book regarding temple marriage or the Celestial Kingdom?
5. I belong to a church that requires me to sustain 15 men as “Prophets, Seers, and Revelators”. Why is there so little prophesying, seering, and revelating? There ought to be more prophesying in the Church than I could shake a stick at. And if they never do any prophesying, why am I supposed to sustain them as prophets? Shouldn’t they have to earn the title? Moses could part the Red Sea, Elijah called down fire from heaven, Peter and the other New Testament apostles were constantly healing blind, deaf, and lame people - why have no modern apostles and prophets ever done anything even remotely close to that? These days we set the bar pretty low for our “prophets, seers, and revelators”, wouldn’t you say?
6. Since the advent of the internet, many LDS church members have discovered things about Church history they find troubling. Some have left the Church, others suffer considerably trying to reconcile information they have discovered – information that in some cases was withheld from them - with the beliefs they want so badly to hold onto. Why hasn’t the Prophet received any revelations answering the questions that trouble so many? Does God not care about the souls of those who have left the Church over historical questions? Shouldn’t resolving these questions be easy in a church with 15 “prophets, seers, and revelators”? Shouldn’t the Brethren have seen these things coming ahead of time? Have the “watchmen on the tower” been asleep at their posts?
7. If we really believe plural marriage was a commandment from God, why do we try and distance ourselves from it? Why are Joseph Smith’s plural wives never mentioned? If God truly commanded him to take women who were already married and teenage girls as plural wives, why are we so reluctant to talk about it? Why do we pretend Emma was his only wife? Are we ashamed of what God has commanded? Or is it perhaps a nagging doubt that perhaps it wasn’t really something God commanded (incidentally, isn’t it interesting the way that whenever men claim to speak for God they so often say that God has commanded them to sleep with lots of women? What do Jim Jones, David Koresh, Warren Jeffs, and Joseph Smith all have in common?).
8. Why hasn’t the President of the Church received a revelation to settle the question once and for regarding why blacks were denied the Priesthood? Again, with 15 “Prophets, Seers, and Revelators”, this is a question that should have been answered long ago. Does God not care enough to tell us? Or is it that Brethren just don’t care enough to ask Him about it?
9. Why is so much of what has been taught from the pulpit downplayed by the Church’s Public Relations department on the Church’s official website? For example, on the Mormonism 101 FAQ on the Church’s website, in response to the question “Do Latter-Day Saints believe they will ‘get their own planet’?” the response is
“No. This idea is not taught in Latter-day Saint scripture, nor is it a doctrine of the Church. This misunderstanding stems from speculative comments unreflective of scriptural doctrine. Mormons believe that we are all sons and daughters of God and that all of us have the potential to grow during and after this life to become like our Heavenly Father (see Romans 8:16-17). The Church does not and has never purported to fully understand the specifics of Christ’s statement that “in my Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14:2).”
The official Church response is misleading - if not blatantly false - in many respects. While perhaps not couched in the exact words of “getting their own planet”, the idea that exalted members of the Church would create their own worlds someday has been taught repeatedly at the highest levels of the Church, and to dismiss that as “speculative comments unreflective of scriptural doctrine” is to dismiss the words of “prophets, seers, and revelators” from the past and present. Moreover, the Church has indeed “purported to know” at least some specifics about exaltation – for instance, D&C 132 19-20 states that those who are exalted
“shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. “
Why do the teachings of the Church say one thing, while the PR on the Church’s website says something completely different?
10. Finally, why does God’s one and only true church spend so much money on making more money? Why would an organization headed by Christ - the same Christ of the New Testament who told the young rich man to sell all he had and follow Him - build the City Creek Center in Salt Lake for an estimated $1.5 billion? Can you imagine that Christ would tell them to do that? If the Church really has more than a billion dollars to spend, is it reasonable to think that Christ would want that money spent on a billion dollar mall? Is that what Christ was about? Why is that what the Church is about? How am I supposed to feel about belonging to a Church that spent a billion and a half dollars on a mall? What has happened to Christ’s admonition in Matthew 6:19-21 to
19 ¶Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
I know where our treasure is as a Church – what does that say about where our heart is as a Church?
11. Oh, yeah, this makes more than 10 but I almost forgot – if Joseph Smith could translate ancient texts using the power of God, why are the translations in the facsimiles in the Book of Abraham nothing but gobbledygook? If the translations were the real deal, wouldn’t people who can translate ancient Egyptian be joining the Church in droves when they learned how Joseph Smith translated the hieroglyphics in the facsimiles? If Joseph Smith could really translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs - what an awesome demonstration of prophetic power that would be! But what do we have instead? Enish-go-on-dosh and Hah-ko-kau-beam. Really? The facsimiles are the one verifiable test we have of Joseph Smith’s ability to translate ancient languages – why is it such an epic fail? Why should we believe he could translate anything else? Why does the evidence indicate that Joseph Smith was an amazing storyteller, but was also someone who couldn’t translate his way out of a wet paper bag?
Are you thinking about asking these questions that LDS Church members should never ask? Not so fast – you may want to consider it carefully first. Here’s why:
10 reasons why Latter-Day Saints should never ask these questions:
1. If the foregoing questions make you question your faith, remember the Church teaches that you can only be with your family for the eternities in the Celestial Kingdom if you remain faithful to the teachings of the Church. There is no room for questions – however reasonable they may seem – when the Church is holding your family hostage in the eternities.
2. If the foregoing questions make you question your faith, remember that should you ever leave the Church, you will always be less of a person to your true believing family. You will never be the worthy Priesthood holder you wife has been taught to value. You will watch other men bless your babies and baptize your children. And don’t forget, your doubt will disqualify you from attending the temple weddings of believing family members. If you want to see your children’s weddings, don’t ask these questions. You will never be up to snuff in the eyes of your believing family members if you ever question your faith. You will be forever “less than” to them.
3. If the foregoing questions make you question your faith, remember that you will break the hearts of your believing family members. Temple sealing for eternity to family members seems a wonderful blessing – so long as all family members continue to believe in the teachings of the Church. But let one of them start doubting, and suddenly that same doctrine that seemed to unite your family for the eternities will now separate your family for the eternities. Nothing will break a family apart like the concept of “Forever Families” should one of them ever leave the Church. Your husband, your wife, your parents, your children – any and all believing family members - must now live with the heartache of believing they will not be with you in the Celestial Kingdom. “No empty chairs”, after all.
4. If the foregoing questions make you question your faith, remember that in the eyes of your member friends and family, the Church is never wrong, you are. The Church is perfect, neither it nor its leaders can possibly be the problem - the problem is you. You must have wanted to sin, perhaps you are already sinning - it is the only possible answer in the eyes of the members you know. Prepare your reputation for a good besmirching.
5. If the foregoing questions make you question your faith, remember that your family has been taught to think that the Church is more important to them than you are. You can’t win, the cards are stacked against you, push comes to shove your family will most likely pick the Church over you. My parents love the Church more than they love me – don’t yours? Oh, and by the way, the Church doesn’t care about you, and it never has. It only cared whether you were doing what it told you to do. In other words, if forced to choose your family will probably pick the Church because they love it more than they love you, even though the Church doesn’t love them back and really doesn’t care about them at all. Comforting, isn’t it?
6. If the foregoing questions make you question your faith, remember that there will probably be no believing member you can talk to about it. You probably can’t tell your Bishop – some Bishops are willing to try and help resolve your doubts in a loving manner, others will feel threatened and lash out at you, some may even attempt to bully you. No Bishop will have answers for your questions, because the one answer that makes sense is the one they will never consider. As for other members, forget talking to them – the second you begin to question, you become a threat. Hopefully you can find someone on the internet to talk to about your questions, because chances are slim you know any members who will. Most of them are not equipped with the cognitive tools that would allow them to handle hard questions about the Church – it isn’t part of the program, after all. And if you try to talk to non-members about your questions, most will just think you were crazy for ever believing it all in the first place.
7. If the foregoing questions make you question your faith, remember that there will be many sleepless, lonely nights trying to figure it all out. The Church you loved, the Church you sacrificed your time and money and talents and efforts for, maybe even sacrificed years of your life on a mission for - that Church you were taught to value above all else may not be what you thought it was. And no believing members in your life will see the grief, disappointment, and heartache behind your doubts – they will only see the doubts on the surface, and then regard you with disdain. They will neither see nor appreciate the pain behind your doubts.
8. If the foregoing questions make you question your faith, remember that if you leave the Church member friends will no longer even know what to talk to you about. Members talk about the Church so much that they hardly even realize they are doing it, it is second nature to them. You will find that your believing member friends suddenly won’t know what to talk about with you if they don’t feel like they can talk about the Church. The Church sticks its nose into everything – your family’s weddings, your family’s funerals, even what underwear your endowed family members wear. The Church is inescapable for believing members, and as soon as you are on the outside they aren’t going to have any idea how to relate to you anymore.
9. If the foregoing questions make you question your faith, remember that the social costs of disaffection from the Church for your believing family members will be high. Your LDS family members will now be the object of pity for others in the ward, because for many of them the worst thing that could ever conceivably happen would be for a family member to leave the Church. Your children will now sing “mine is a home where every hour / is blessed by the strength of priesthood power” in Primary knowing that is true for the other kids’ homes, but not theirs. And that, of course, will be your fault, not the Church’s.
10. Finally, if the foregoing questions make you question your faith, remember that you must now be responsible for your own beliefs. It is so much easier to let the Church tell you what to believe than it is to figure it out for yourself. You will have to do some serious soul searching to decide what parts of your former beliefs to keep and which to discard. Thinking about what you believe is hard, it is easier to just go with the flow – after all, that’s what most Church members do.
But then again, perhaps the most important questions you should ask yourself are these – if the Church isn’t what it claims to be
· would you want to know?
· what would you do about it?
· what price would you be willing to pay to get out of it?
Unfortunately for me, the price is too high. God forgive me for living the lie, but I love my family more than I hate the lie. The Church has my wife and children, and there is nothing I can do about it. I love my wife and children more than I love anything – more than I love truth, more than I love freedom, more than I love my time and money, more than I love my integrity, more than I love my conscience, more than I love my own soul. I just hope God is a lot more forgiving and compassionate than the Church makes Him out to be.
God have mercy on the man who is trapped in the lie.
