Opposing Perspectives on Christ’s True Church: Which Is Your Vision of Mormonism?

And God commanded them “Judge ye one another”.

 

The prophets told them that they must pass righteous judgment on the sinners among them, and cast them out if they would not repent.

 

And there were some among them who would not repent.  These people seemed to have no desire to repent. These people committed a sin that God hated above all other sins.  God reserved a special hatred for this sin, for it was like unto murder.

 

The people who had this sin within them had a hard time understanding, because it seemed that God had created them with no real power to overcome this sin. So they wondered if God hated them. They asked themselves “Why would Heavenly Father do that to anyone?” They were told they had chosen this sin, but they could not remember making a choice. They knew that this was part of them, and so they could only conclude that it was some kind of special curse: that they were afflicted, that they were inferior, that they not worthy of the love of God, or of their families, or of the church.

 

These people tried to overcome this sin. They sacrificed everything. They sacrificed any chance of close human relationship and lived in isolation. They were told that if they were righteous, this condition would be removed from them. They were told that if they had enough faith, God would grant a miracle to them. They were told that God could not refuse the pleas of a humble repentant seeker. So they fasted. They prayed. They struggled. They lived the commandments. They engaged in good works and sincere repentance. But they didn’t get rewarded. It seemed that God hated them.

 

They turned to the modern prophets. The words of the modern prophets clarified that God would rather see them dead than to fall into this sin. Many of these people knew that they could not live alone, and could not live with the despair, so many of them took their own lives.

 

This caused great pain to their families, although a few of the families were relieved. They were relieved that they would not have to withstand the public embarrassment of having such a vile sinner in their family, even if they loved their son and brother, or sister and daughter. Others were relieved that their child had saved himself/herself from God’s punishment by taking their own life before they indulged in the sin that was consuming them.

 

Meanwhile the Saints made sure that they kept the house of the Lord clean, by casting these sinners from their midst. The cast them off with no mercy as God would have them do. They cast their young people into the streets, where they were persecuted, abused, starved. They understood that in order to show love to these sinners they must never tolerate their sin. They understood that tolerating the sin was contributing to their damnation. They understood that God has a limit of tolerance, because it is better to suffer now than to spend an eternity in hell. They understood that they should not try to minister to the suffering of these sinners. They knew that by granting them any legal protections that they would be hastening their condemnation, so they showed love by battling against their legal rights. They also knew that they couldn’t giving any legitimacy to these people–for that would lead to more people being drawn into that sin. They knew that anybody plagued by this sin or this desire should hide it and take the secret to their grave, and didn’t want to encourage any of these people to feel good about their degraded selves. They knew that God wanted these people to suffer on this earth as long as they were sinning, because that is God’s justice for such sinners.

 

Some of these vile sinners managed to hide their sin, so no one found out. They were allowed in the churches and temples, where they were reminded every week that they were lesser, and that they didn’t deserve God’s favor. A few of them even managed to convince themselves that by hiding it and living extremely pure lives that their burden would be lifted. However, their burden was never lifted, and they came to understand that it was because of their inferior faith and inferior effort.

 

Meanwhile, the righteous people of God grew stronger, knowing that the sinners were cast from their midst. And God rewarded their obedience.

 

But there rose among these people a few individuals who placed great importance on a different commandment. These few believed in the importance of different scripture teachings. They believed that the higher commandment was to “love thy neighbor”. They heeded a scripture that said “judge not”. They felt moved when they read “if you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me”.  They took heart when a modern seer said “Don’t judge me because I sin differently from you”. These few decided to share the burden. These few decided to face rejection too, so that they could show love and support to these outcasts. These few showed great courage and faced harsh criticism. Some of these few were even cast out too.

 

However, these few began to change the attitudes of God’s people.

 

So I ask you: Is God pleased with these few people?

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