The Beauty Of Owning Our Own Post-Certain Religious Life

Brent Beal shared some profound insights about those of us who no longer claim to "know" truth with certainty and yet have rebuilt a life of faith. That transition from certainty to uncertainty is often accompanied from a transition of perceived orthodoxy to heterodoxy as one places higher priority on individual autonomy over simply following directions:

Many of us that have taken the heterodox fork in the road soon realize that we don’t really know anything. Our religious experiences aren’t any more valid or profound or “real” than anyone else’s. Our answers to life’s big questions are just that—they are “our” answers and however wondrous those answers may be to us (and however useful), the fact that we have answered life’s big questions in a certain way doesn’t mean that everyone else’s answers are inferior.  

We are not committed to secularism (or liberalism, or feminism, or progressivism) in the same way that orthodox Mormons are committed to “exact” obedience. We just realize that there is a lot we don’t know. If God speaks to humanity through spiritual experiences, then why does he communicate such radically different information to individuals based on their religious context? We don’t know. That’s it, really. We don’t know.  

Many of us have gotten to the point of “I don’t know,” stared into the abyss, searched our souls for some reflection of deity, and then seen the same thing: We’ve seen each other. We’ve come away from the experience with the profound realization that we–as in all of humanity—are in this together. We are truly one. Until further notice, therefore, it seems obvious that the one thing we can do—the low-hanging fruit, so to speak—is to be nice to each other. We should treat each other fairly, and with dignity and respect.  

Another common line of reasoning among those of us who don’t know much is this. If God created us with individual agency and the capacity for reason, then it makes sense that God expects us to use those capabilities...If forced into this false dichotomy [between “individual autonomy” and a “path of obedience to laws”], I suspect that what we do with our individual autonomy will matter more to God than how well we follow directions. For me it comes down to whether or not I believe God wants us to paint by the numbers or to paint our own pictures? As parents, what do we value more from our four-year-olds? A paint-by-the-numbers portrait identical to what’s on the box, or a free-spirited “Look, Mom, this is you and Dad in a rocket ship with a cow!” masterpiece? 

The path of “I don’t know” is difficult. Taking responsibility for one’s own spiritual life is difficult. Being nice to people is difficult. It’s not easy—not nearly as easy as the “exact obedience” path can be at times. But there’s a reason why most adults have abandoned paint-by-the-numbers projects.

Grace: Like An Oasis in the Desert

Like an oasis in the desert, President Uchtdorf's sermon "The Gift of Grace" was itself, for me, a grace. For years I've blogged about grace, almost feeling like I was being subversive, and meeting with resistance from fellow Mormons long steeped in a tradition that preached works so loudly that even the loud orchestra of grace found in the Book of Mormon was deafened. Mormonism began to hear the music louder beginning in the 90's, and it has been increasing in volume ever since.

Even still, after feeling as though I was being individually refreshed by the waters of Christ's grace, I've at times felt like a wanderer in a desert of Mormonism that traditionally hasn't collectively been embracing grace with equal enthusiasm. Individually, Latter-day Saints here and there have expressed their gratitude for grace, but it has felt more like a grass roots effort rather than something coming from the top down. (Parenthetically, Adam Miller's new little book is a must read whether top, bottom, or anywhere in-between: "Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the Romans.")

And for too long, we equivocated about the meaning of 2nd Nephi 25:23, particularly the line: "It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." Thus yesterday felt like a joyful and historic shift, to me, as that message of grace came loud and clear directly from a member of the First Presidency, one sustained as a "prophet, seer, and revelator." No more do Mormons have any excuse to misunderstand:

I wonder if sometimes we misinterpret the phrase “after all we can do”. We must understand that “after” does not equal “because.” We are not saved "because" of all that we can do. Have any of us done all that we can do? Does God wait until we've expended every effort before he will intervene in our lives with His saving grace? Many people feel discouraged because they constantly fall short. They know first hand that "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." They raise their voices with Nephi in proclaiming, “My soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.” I am certain Nephi knew the Savior’s grace allows and enables us to overcome sin. This is why Nephi labored so diligently to persuade his children and brethren "to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God." After all, that is what we can do! And that is our task in mortality!”

I had never yelled amen as many times and with as much gusto as I did during and after his marvelous sermon:

Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased with the blood of the Son of God. Thinking that we can trade our good works for salvation is like buying a plane ticket and then supposing we own the airline. Or thinking that after paying rent for our home, we now hold title to the entire planet earth.

President Uchtdorf continued: 

If grace is a gift of God then why is obedience to His commandments so important?...We obey the commandments of God--out of love for Him! Trying to understand God’s gift of grace with all our heart and mind gives us all the more reasons to love and obey our Heavenly Father with meekness and gratitude. As we walk the path of discipleship, it refines us, it improves us, it helps us to become more like Him, and it leads us back to His presence. "The Spirit of the Lord [our God]" brings about such a "mighty change in us,...that we have no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually." Therefore, our obedience to God’s commandments comes as a natural outgrowth of our endless love and gratitude for the goodness of God. This form of genuine love and gratitude will miraculously merge our works with God’s grace. Virtue will garnish our thoughts unceasingly, and our confidence will wax strong in the presence of God.

Incidentally, another speaker in conference used a quote that stood out to me, one by Marcel Proust: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Gratefully, my hope and my witness is that Mormonism is seeing with "new eyes" the real good news of the gospel; it is a beautiful landscape. The "good news" isn't Mormonism itself--the "good news" is Christ's grace. And it's the only thing that can save us, both individually and as a church collectively.

With Christ's grace as our only hope for salvation (whether from crises individual or institutional) we'd be wise to separate "the Church" and "The Gospel" from here on out. Christ must be more than a back seat passenger in Mormonism. For too long, too many have traditionally focused on ancillary things: family history, family, temple work, home teaching, "follow the prophet", food storage, tithing, callings, etc, etc. etc. In short, too many focus too much on "the church" itself. Christ's grace needs to emerge from the backseat and sit front and center. And we need to do more to make Christ the focus of all of our meetings, teachings, messages, and families. In short, we must make Christ and his grace more explicit rather than implicit in all that we do and say.

Keeping in mind that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established", here are a couple of other eye-witness reactions that caught my eye from some faithful Mormon scholars I deeply respect:

Jacob Baker:

President Uchtdorf's Priesthood and Sunday morning addresses are essentially one magnificent sermon on Grace, the most significant and Scripturally Christian theological address to come out of the Mormon tradition by an apostle, possibly in all of LDS history, in my opinion. It can and should be studied, not just quoted from, in the future.

Dr. David Bokovoy:

Today was a great day. I especially enjoyed President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s sermon “The Gift of Grace” and wanted to share a few personal thoughts. Shortly before my now 20 year-old daughter left on her full-time LDS mission in Chile, we enjoyed a fun, playful conversation.

“Dad,” she said, “I’m a bit nervous."

"What if I teach something that the Church doesn’t really believe?”

“Why would you be worried about that?” I asked.

“Well I am your daughter,” she jokingly replied.

“So you think I’ve taught you false doctrine?”

She smiled and replied, “Well, Dad, we all know you’re really big on grace.”

“Teach grace, Kate,” I said. “Teach grace.”

Though this conversation was somewhat whimsical, I do believe it captured one of the hermeneutical challenges within Mormonism. It’s admittedly not easy to fully reconcile an LDS emphasis upon obedience with the concept of salvation through God’s grace. The two perspectives create something of a religious paradox. In LDS scripture, God states “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise” (D&C 82:10). Historically, many within the LDS community have used these types of statements to support a type of Pelagianistic belief that humans can earn at least some form of salvation through a work-based effort. Today, President Uchtdorf taught that this view is incongruent with God's plan of salvation. 

“Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience,” he declared to a world-wide audience, “it is purchased by the blood of the Son of God. Thinking that we can trade our good works for salvation is like buying a plane ticket and then supposing we own the airline. Or thinking that after paying rent for our home, we now hold title to the entire planet earth." 

President Uchtdorf continued: 

“If grace is a gift of God then why is obedience to His commandments so important? We obey the commandments of God out of love for Him. Trying to understand God’s gifts of grace with all our heart and mind gives us all the more reasons to love and obey our Heavenly Father with meekness and gratitude. As we walk the path of discipleship it refines us, it improves us, it helps us to become more like Him, and it leads us back to His presence.” 

This was a remarkable conference sermon. Theologically, if we believe that God should save us because of our faithfulness then Jesus may be a helper; he may even be our example and inspiration, but he is not our Savior. Instead, we are our own saviors. This point is admittedly a challenging theological notion, which is why I was so fascinated and touched by President Uchtdorf's sermon. 

It reminded me of one of my favorite books on the topic of grace—The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. Keller is a great Christian theologian. He is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. The Prodigal God is a powerful devotional reading of the famous parable in Luke 15:11-32. Keller explains that the parable describes two lost sons, one who abandons his father entirely in order to live a sinful life, and the other who lives a life of strict obedience in order to bind his father into giving a reward.

As Keller explains, it’s easy to recognize that the “younger brother” in this story is spiritually lost. Yet it’s much more difficult to see that the older brother—the one who faithfully attends Church and keeps the commandants-is likewise lost. “I never transgressed your commandments at any time," the older brother reminds the father. “And yet you never gave me a kid so that I could make merry with my friends.” This constitutes an extraordinary statement, and yet the father never denies the claim. The older brother in the parable had obeyed all the commandments.

So why was he spiritually lost? The answer is that the older brother obeyed the father for the wrong reason. He obeyed the father so that the father would feel forced to grant rewards. This explains why the older brother felt angry, and could not accept the grace extended to the younger brother who spent his share of the father's inheritance on riotous living. 

If our obedience to God derives from a desire to control divinity then our morality consists of a way to use God as an instrument to grant our desires. As the parable illustrates, this mindset causes us to look down upon younger brothers. Efforts to bind God through obedience creates elitism and classism (both of which are spiritually problematic or "lost" conditions). This is why the "older brother syndrome" fosters resentment towards younger brothers and divinity. On this point Keller writes: 

"The first sign you have an elder-brother spirit is that when your life doesn’t go as you want, you aren’t just sorrowful but deeply angry and bitter. Elder brothers believe that if they live a good life they should get a good life, that God owes them a smooth road if they try very hard to live up to standards. What happens, then, if you are an elder brother and things go wrong in your life? If you feel you have been living up to your moral standards, you will be furious with God. You don’t deserve this, you will think, after how hard you’ve worked to be a decent person! What happens, however, if things have gone wrong in your life when you know that you have been falling short of your standards? Then you will be furious with yourself, filled with self-loathing and inner pain. And if evil circumstances overtake you, and you are not sure whether your life has been good enough or not, you may swing miserably back and forth between the poles of 'I hate Thee!' and 'I hate me.'” (pp. 49-50).

It’s not that obedience and good works are insignificant for the Christian life. It’s that they must be performed for the right reason—the reason President Uchtdorf explained today in General Conference: because God is "prodigal" with humanity. He gives his grace so fully that there is nothing else left. God is the type of father we encounter in the parable, a father who runs out and embraces younger brothers and gives them all that he has. Christians should obey a God like that because we love him. Because he is so good we want to do more than do. We want to serve and become.

Hazards of Obedience

To quote the late great BYU historian Richard Poll:

James Madison cautioned: "When the Almighty himself condescends to address mankind in their own language, his meaning, luminous as it must be, is rendered dim and doubtful by the cloudy medium through which it is communicated." Because I believe with Madison that everyone, including Paul and other prophets, sees eternity "through a glass darkly" (1 Cor. 13:12), prophetic infallibility, scriptural inerrancy, and unquestioning obedience are not elements of my faith… 

I believe that revelation may come through visions, dreams, and visitations, as God wills, but my Madisonian skepticism rejects the notion that the mind of a prophet-any prophet-is a fax machine linked to a divine transmitter.

-"A Liahona Latter-day Saint" or in pdf form here:

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/096-35-38.pdf

And to quote BCC emeritus blogger, Aaron Brown:

I long for the day when LDS church meetings and materials tout not only the virtues of obedience, but its potential hazards as well. As my daughter gets older, I guess I’ll have to supplement the messages she receives in church with correctives that keep her more balanced than the diet of weekly obedience rhetoric from her church meetings is likely to provide her. Unfortunate, really, but that’s life in the modern-day Mormon Church I guess. 

(I’m not speaking to the merits of the Church’s position on gay marriage at all. I’m speaking to the one-sidedness of LDS discourse on obedience in general, of which this editorial is a disturbing and all-too-typical example, nothing more).

-Aaron Brown, comment #67 http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2008/07/when-the-prophet-speaks/

And from "A Timeless Argument":

Do we all passively note the increasing references to obedience as the first commandment, and the passing of free agency as a tangible LDS belief, without remembering the beauty of Matthew 22: 36-40, or the savage rationalizations and emotions that led to Dachau, My Lai, or Mountain Meadows? The obedience path is one which has a ditch on either side, and I am convinced that present fears of the disorder on the one side are pushing us toward the abyss on the other. 

The abyss is described by Stanley Milgram in his 1974 book, "Obedience to Authority", which reports his extensive work on the destructive consequences of blind obedience of being submissive to control from others. In a famous series of laboratory experiments begun at Yale University and repeated at different sites around the world, student assistants were instructed by university researchers to administer electric shocks to fellow students who were participating in a study to determine the effect of negative feedback on learning. The more mistakes the learner made, the higher the intensity of the charge sent by the student behind the one-way glass. As the learners writhed increasingly from the pain being inflicted upon them when they made mistakes, some of the student assistants said they did not want to hurt the subjects and wished to stop. Their consciences were speaking to them. When reassured by the white jacketed scholars that this was an important experiment that had to be carried on to conclusion and that many other people had been willing to carry through with these same responsibilities in previous runs of the experiment, most of the students proceeded to inflict well-nigh unbearable suffering, even when those behind the glass begged and pleaded to be unwired and one subject screamed, "I've got a weak heart!'', then slumped in his chair. In truth, the electric shocks were not actually being sent; the recipients were all actors. The real subjects in the study were the student assistants themselves. Milgram was trying to determine the limits of obedience and the vulnerability of personal conscience when authority and precedent press hard against it.  He was sobered by what he found. A pre-experiment prediction was that not even one in a hundred assistants would go to the limit of the electronic equipment. In reality, nearly two-thirds of them did. 

Why did students lack the courage to say no to their superiors?  The fact that the experiment was described to them as being highly important, the assurances that others had obediently carried these responsibilities through in the past, and the air of confidence shown by the authorities, all contributed to the successful suppression of personal judgment and the courage to act on it. When interviewed following the experiments, many of the students said they felt sure what they were doing was wrong, but their belief that they were part of something larger, and the authorities' calm assurances, led them to surrender the claims of their own conscience. 

People of any age, but especially the young, are susceptible to control by others. This is particularly true among Mormons, precisely because of our strong emphasis on respecting those in authority. Even those who believe that obedience to religious authorities can never be excessive must recognize that a blindly obedient mentality nurtured within a religious context can lead to extreme vulnerability outside it. The scale of scams and success of swindlers in Utah is one evidence that Mormons too easily defer judgment to others if, for whatever reason, they decide to trust them.  An obedient people is a people easily led--by whoever comes along. 

The analogy of the fasces--the bundle of flimsy sticks bound tightly with cords to form a mighty instrument--is often used to justify organizational discipline and obedience to a single person or elite. It illustrates the strength of directed thought and action, yet despite the fact that this image appeared on the American dime for decades, we must remember that it was the symbol from which the fascists (or Nazis) took their name. Willingness to blindly accept orders from other persons involves the transfer of control from inside the self to an external locus. The individual feels an increasing sense of duty to the leaders but loses a sense of responsibility for his or her own actions and their consequences, thus producing the "crimes of obedience'' that have ravaged virtually all totalitarian societies and from which no society or group can claim immunity. 

Free societies, however, are based on the ideal that each individual is an irreducible, independent moral agent. Those who are able to think for themselves, are not only essential to the existence of free institutions but also fully prepared to enjoy and benefit from the blessings of life itself. For them, obedience is to principles, not persons; an informed conscience is their guide.  General Alexander W. Doniphan possessed the unusual courage to resist a written military order, and Joseph Smith was spared execution on the morning of 1 November 1838 (HC 3:190-99). We honor Doniphan for disobeying his military superior; his ultimate loyalty was to principle. 

The irony today, regarding the obedience issue within the LDS Church, is that distinctions are rarely made between loyalty to leaders and loyalty to principle. It is simply assumed that they are one and the same. Yet this union would require a claim of infallibility, not only for the president of the Mormon Church but for the entire priesthood. Omni-infallibility. Since such a claim has never been made and scriptures clearly warn us about the dangers of exercising unrighteous dominion (D&C 121:39), we inevitably face the task of making distinctions about obedience.  My ultimate loyalty may be to God, but how do I know God's will? Through the study of scripture? By listening to Church leaders? By applying gospel principles? Or, by sensing the still small voice? These sources of understanding are not always consistent; but even if they were, they could not fully anticipate or inform every action or judgment I must make. New situations constantly confront me; only an enlightened and prayerful conscience can blend divine intent with personal knowledge to guide my decisions. No one has the wisdom or right to do this for me. 

Gospel principles and the Church are not synonymous.  But one reason these concepts have become so blurred is that we seem to be making obedience to Church into a terminal principle, rather than an instrumental one. It has become an end in itself. Therein lies the confusion about the first commandment: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matt. 22: 37--40).  Loyalty to God and love of neighbor are the ends. Obedience to enduring principles is a means. Once obedience itself becomes an end, however, the believer no longer takes full responsibility for the consequences of his or her own actions. If things go awry, the sin be on someone else's head. Never mind those sinned against. Fortunately, "love thy neighbor as thyself," the ultimate principle, dams this stream of faulty reasoning.

When the Prophet Speaks, Is the Thinking Done?

It is often stated by critics of the Church that the LDS people are blind followers of the prophet, and that the Church expects and cultivates such blind obedience. A quote which they choose to offer in support of this misconception is that ‘when the prophet speaks, the thinking is done.’ This statement originally appeared in the Improvement Era, in June 1945, as the Ward Teaching message for the month. This message is reproduced here, in full, as it originally appeared.

Ward Teaching CONDUCTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE PRESIDING BISHOPRIC. EDITED BY LEE A. PALMER. WARD TEACHERS The teacher’s duty is to watch over the church always, and be with and strengthen them; And see that there is no iniquity in the church, neither hardness with each other, neither lying, backbiting, nor evil speaking; And see that the church meet together often, and also see that all the members do their duty. (D. & C. 20:53-55.) Ward Teachers’ Message for June, 1945 “SUSTAINING THE GENERAL AUTHORITIES OF THE CHURCH” NO Latter-day Saint is compelled to sustain the General Authorities of the Church. When given the opportunity to vote on the proposition in any of the several conferences held throughout the Church, he may indicate his willingness to sustain them by raising his right hand; he may manifest his opposition in like manner; or he may ignore the opportunity entirely. There is no element of coercion or force in this or any other Church procedure. However, there is the principle of honor involved in the member’s choice. When a person raises his hand to sustain Church leaders as “prophets, seers, and revelators,” it is the same as a promise and a covenant to follow their leadership and to abide by their counsel as the living oracles of God. Consequently, any subsequent act or word of mouth which is at variance with the will of the Lord as taught by the leaders of the Church places the sincerity of such person in serious doubt. One could scarcely have claim upon complete integrity, if he raises his hand to sustain the Authorities of the Church and then proceeds in opposition to their counsel. Any Latter-day Saint who denounces or opposes, whether actively or otherwise, any plan or doctrine advocated by the “prophets, seers, and revelators” of the Church is cultivating the spirit of apostasy. One cannot speak evil of the Lord’s anointed and retain the Holy Spirit in his heart. It should be remembered that Lucifer has a very cunning way of convincing unsuspecting souls that the General Authorities of the Church are as likely to be wrong as they are to be right. This sort of game is Satan’s favorite pastime, and he has practiced it on believing souls since Adam. He wins a great victory when he can get members of the Church to speak against their leaders and to “do their own thinking.” He specializes in suggesting that our leaders are in error while he plays the blinding rays of apostasy in the eyes of those whom he thus beguiles. What cunning! And to think that some of our members are deceived by this trickery. The following words of the Prophet Joseph Smith should be memorized by every Latter-day Saint and repeated often enough to insure their never being forgotten: I will give you one of the Keys of the mysteries of the Kingdom. It is an eternal principle, that has existed with God from all eternity: That man who rises up to condemn others, finding fault with the Church, saying that they are out of the way, while he himself is righteous, then know assuredly, that that man is in the high road to apostasy; and if he does not repent, will apostatize, as God lives. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 156-157.) When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan–it is God’s plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy. God works in no other way. To think otherwise, without immediate repentance, may cost one his faith, may destroy his testimony, and leave him a stranger to the kingdom of God.

The appearance of this message caused much concern among many inside and outside of the Church. Dr. J. Raymond Cope, the leader of the First Unitarian Society in Salt Lake City, was one of those concerned. He decided to express his concerns about the impact of this message in a letter to President George Albert Smith in November of the same year. The letter was cordial, and expressed the feeling that such a message was “doing inestimable harm to many who have no other reason to question the integrity of the Church leaders… this cannot be the position of the true leaders.”

President Smith responded to Dr. Cope with a letter of his own, designed to clarify the point, at the first of December. The letter, reproduced in full below, should lay to rest any misconception about whether the Church or its leaders expect blind obedience in any degree. (Items that are underlined are underlined in the original.)

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Office of the First Presidency Salt Lake City, Utah December 7, 1945 Dr. J. Raymond Cope First Unitarian Society 13th East at 6th South Street Salt Lake City, Utah My dear Dr. Cope: I have read with interest and deep concern your letter of November 16, 1945, in which you make special comment on “a short religious editorial prepared by one of your (our) leaders entitled “Sustaining the General Authorities of the Church’”. You say that you read the message with amazement, and that you have since been disturbed because of its effect upon members of the Church. I am gratified with the spirit of friendliness that pervades your letter, and thank you for having taken the time to write to me. The leaflet to which you refer, and from which you quote in your letter, was not “prepared” by “one of our leaders.” However, one or more of them inadvertently permitted the paragraph to pass uncensored. By their so doing, not a few members of the Church have been upset in their feelings, and General Authorities have been embarrassed. I am pleased to assure you that you are right in your attitude that the passage quoted does not express the true position of the Church. Even to imply that members of the Church are not to do their own thinking is grossly to misrepresent the true ideal of the Church, which is that every individual must obtain for himself a testimony of the truth of the Gospel, must, through the redemption of Jesus Christ, work out his own salvation, and is personally responsible to His Maker for his individual acts. The Lord Himself does not attempt coercion in His desire and effort to give peace and salvation to His children. He gives the principles of life and true progress, but leaves every person free to choose or to reject His teachings. This plan the Authorities of the Church try to follow. The Prophet Joseph Smith once said: “I want liberty of thinking and believing as I please.” This liberty he and his successors in the leadership of the Church have granted to every other member thereof. On one occasion in answer to the question by a prominent visitor how he governed his people, the Prophet answered: “I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.” Again, as recorded in the History of the Church (Volume 5, page 498 [499] Joseph Smith said further: “If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.” I cite these few quotations, from many that might be given, merely to confirm your good and true opinion that the Church gives to every man his free agency, and admonishes him always to use the reason and good judgment with which God has blessed him. In the advocacy of this principle leaders of the Church not only join congregations in singing but quote frequently the following: “Know this, that every soul is free To choose his life and what he’ll be, For this eternal truth is given That God will force no man to heaven.” Again I thank you for your manifest friendliness and for your expressed willingness to cooperate in every way to establish good will and harmony among the people with whom we are jointly laboring to bring brotherhood and tolerance. Faithfully yours, Geo. Albert Smith [signed]

This letter can be found in the George A. Smith Papers (Manuscript no. 36, Box 63-8A), Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. More detailed information on this topic can be found in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19:1 (Spring 1986), 35-39.

http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/publications/when-the-prophet-speaks-is-the-thinking-done

http://bycommonconsent.com/2009/06/25/when-our-leaders-speak-the-thinking-has-been-done/

Salvation by Grace, Obedience, and the Parable of the Pie

As the ward primary chorister I teach the children to sing the article of faith songs; this month it's the third article of faith. While I primarily teach the gospel through music, there are many times when I feel the need to clarify what they're actually singing about so that they don't misunderstand. I fear that many within (as well as outside) the Mormon faith do this all too easily when they read the third article of faith. It states: "We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel."

My concern lies in taking three words out of context--saved by obedience--and getting a distorted picture of how this whole salvation thing is supposed to work. Thankfully the language in the third article of faith (“all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel”) is clarified in the fourth article of faith: “We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, second, Repentance, third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins.” Then to those who obey these principles God gives the gift of the Holy Spirit ("fourth, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.”).

But since we don't sing the fourth article of faith until next month, I'll try to make sure those kids don't miss the most sublime and important point--the Atonement of Christ saves. The only crucial "laws and principles" for which our obedience is of upmost importance is having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repenting. Those two principles represent the real good news--Christ has us covered (see 2nd Nephi 2: 6-7, Alma 12: 33-34). I feel dismayed at how many people get stuck on a "do it yourself" salvation mentality--as if they can work out their own salvation if they're just obedient enough. (Let me know how that goes!)

When we sing "I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me", I would hope that no Mormon would ever be confused about grace as though it were a foreign concept. Rather, I would hope we're all amazed and confused at how all emcompasing that amazing grace truly is, especially being applied to mortals like us who don't deserve it.

With that said, I'd like to share my current favorite analogy here--The Parable of the Pie. I was first introduced to the parable here, but its author (Pyschochemiker) recently wrote it out in greater detail here. I quote it below, with some minor edits:

THE PARABLE OF THE PIE:

If I bake a pie (imagine your favorite, mine’s definitely blackberry), and invite you over, even when you don’t deserve it, cut a piece out, hand you a fork, and put some ice cream on top. Now there’s a choice, you could sit there and talk about how nice it was for me to make the pie, and talk about how good of a baker I am, or how awesome I am to not require you to do anything to get the pie. But until you choose to actually eat any of the pie, you won’t really know how good it tastes. Would you have gained from the pie without having eaten it, no. Yet, would you really claim boasting rights, or consider it an achievement that you actually ate the pie. Of course not.

From the Mormon point of view, eating the pie is the equivalent of [having faith in Christ, repentance], submitting to baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost...[followed by] a life of discipleship. That is how you “come unto Christ.” That’s how you partake of His grace. But just like we didn’t earn the pie, we also don’t enjoy it unless we eat it.

[One might ask]: “Have I not then become, in a sense, a co-savior with Christ?”
And I would answer: “Not unless you also become a co-baker with me for eating my pie.”

The pie is the salvation that Christ has prepared for us, but we MUST choose to follow him, yet we don’t earn the salvation. He moved first, He provides, He saves, but we must react positively and obediently to His message. “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, if ye do not the things which I say unto you.”

Now it’s true Christ doesn’t cut the slice out for everyone, and doesn’t hand the fork to everyone, but He has made the pie for everyone, and invited everyone to come and have some. Those who know the sweetness of that pie, know that Christ is the Baker thereof, and we [wouldn't trade it for any other substitute]."