#lds baptisms

[the-rockinahard-place]

Do any of y’all know if all the baptism for the dead I’ve done are actually invalid? because like picture this: my friend braydon over here is helping the ghosts of James and John while me (the secretly a boy) person is helping out Linda and Mary. like does the gender really matter? or have I just accidentally condemned a few unfortunate souls. Shittt sorry Martha, looks like your name’s lost forever because some dude was the one that dawned your name in the baptismal font. Our bad 😬

[daisydisciple]

for the record. baptism for the dead isn't "nonconsensual" in any way? like doctrinally it's an offering that the dead person is free to accept or reject.

and:

if you don't believe in an afterlife then why do you care at all

if you do believe in an afterlife but don't believe in baptism according to the lds tradition/priesthood authority in the lds church/that the baptism is going to do anything then why do you care

if you do believe that the baptism is real and valid but that it's wrong to offer it/it's somehow forced upon that person and a violation of their agency I don't believe you. I don't think that's a position that anyone holds for real

more likely people are uncomfortable with a possible disrespect of the living by dishonoring their dead or something along those lines

but:

you are supposed to submit the names of your own ancestors. We are doing this for OUR dead

hence the whole genealogy thing. you know. FAMILY search

what I believe to be the main criticism in this regard is not current events

in conclusion:

USE the church's genealogical resources for whatever you want! you are not participating in anything shady

if you are freaked out by the concept of baptism for the dead because "it sounds like a weird cult thing" or something, maybe get over it and open your mind a little bit?

you can compare it to like. praying on behalf of a dead person. honoring your ancestors. a normal and common thing across many cultures

[lovingldsconvert]

six months ago my friend asked me about my baptism she couldn’t attend because we lived in different countries

[heathersdesk]

[not-so-superheroine]

Since it's not going in my article due to space constraints, i'll share a bit about Jane Manning James here. It won't be superfleshed out atm bc it got cut. I plan to do more later. As I am *Reorganized*, writing this for a Community of Christ publication, i researched Ld-S shared history to the point of Nauvoo. my article doesn't follow west (technically). the main resource was an LDS one (thank you v much for your freely available archive) asking about her time with the prophet of the Restoration.

Jane Manning James

A significant Black Latter Day Saint from the early church was Jane Manning James. A woman from Connecticut notably made the walk from Buffalo, New York to Nauvoo, Illinois on foot, with most of her family. This was only after being separated from the group of recently converted latter day saints in Buffalo, possibly due to their race. Jane was baptized in 1842 by missionaries in her home state of Connecticut. She recorded these things about her journey and arrival to Nauvoo and her faith when asked to recall her life living with Joseph Smith in 1905.

“When I went there [Nauvoo] I only had two things on me, no shoes nor stockings, wore them all out on the road… They [Joseph and Emma] was looking for us because I wrote them a letter. There was eight of us, my mother and two sisters and a brother and sister-in-law, and we had two children, one they had to carry all the way there, and we traveled a thousand miles.”

She was sure in her belief of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Modern Prophecy. She says in her recollection, after seeing that Joseph Smith Jr was indeed the man in her vision in Connecticut, that “This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and there will never be any other on earth. It has come to stay.” Sister James would later go west with the saints under the leadership of then Apostle Brigham Young.

--------

me tumblr posting again:

thank you for the example set Sister James on faith, dedication, and perseverance. She also had spiritual gifts, such as speaking in tongue and faith healing. She believed following the gospel, knowing it was a key to a better way of living life (for her.) it wasn't easy for her, and yet, i think the faith community i observe today (and mormonism in general) is better, just for her having lived it.

may she be at peace, and in a manner God, Sister Jane herself, and her family she led that meant so very much to her, see fit.

[2pen2wildfire]

Fluffy Clouds

The sky is blue

And filled with fluffy clouds

White, fluffy clouds

Warm August sun

And you're all in white

Like the clouds

Warm water

You want to swim

That's why you're here

You want to swim

That white dress

It clings to everything

Fluffy white dress

Fluffy clouds

You never got to swim like you wanted to, did you?

Just sat there in your fluffy white dress

Hair dripping

Dad beside you

Reminding you why you're here

You aren't supposed to swim

You're supposed to drown

Drown in the warm water and be revived

Born anew

Shaped into a pretty white fluffy thing

You knew that when you chose this, didn't you?

Knew what it all meant

Knew it was forever

You chose this

You chose this dress

It clings to everything and you can't make it stop

Speak, girl

Recite that old script

That you know you're too smart to say

Disappoint yourself

Or disappoint everyone else

They're waiting, girl

Tell them that the sky was blue

And filled with fluffy clouds

[growingupmormon]

Wanting to get baptized because I got to pick the restaurant we went to afterwards

[wisdomfish]

Mormonism cannot lead you to heaven because it departs from the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

As with the deity of Christ, the wording on salvation appears similar to biblical Christianity. However, any belief that deviates from the deity of Christ thereby espouses an unsavable Christ and a false gospel (Gal. 1:8-9).

Tragically, this is a Jesus who cannot save. Since he is not truly God, he cannot be the sinless God-man who does not possess Adam’s sinful nature (Rom. 5:12, 1 Cor. 15:22). Since he is not the sinless God-man outside of Adam’s condemned line, his death cannot effectually atone for the sin of one sinner. The eternality and sinlessness of Christ are essential to his saving ability (Heb. 7:24-27). Mormonism speaks of the atonement, but with such a Jesus, it is fictitious. Since this Jesus cannot atone for sin, not one person who puts faith in him will be forgiven, justified, reconciled to God, and go to heaven. And since this Jesus is not the true God-man, he cannot rise from the dead, notwithstanding Mormonism’s assertion of such a thing. Thus, no one can go to heaven through the LDS Jesus.

A Christ who is not the eternal God of the Bible cannot effectually save and propitiate sin for men who are not sinless. A being who is not the God of Scripture, whether having ascended to divinity or not, is unable to ascend to a moral finesse necessary such that his substitutionary death would be sufficient to placate the wrath of God for sinners (Heb. 7:26-27, 1 John 4:10). Humanity is depraved. Unless we have an individual who is truly God and truly man, humanity remains under the wrath of God because no created individual can arise out of Adam to atone for our sin. This, sadly, is another point where Mormonism is void of any saving power.

Furthermore, since Christ is not the eternal God of the Bible, the justice of God in forgiving sinners is called into question. If God the Father is going to justly justify the unjust, then he must do so through the biblical Christ. Christ must be eternal God or we may not have eternal life.

Mormon doctrine teaches that atonement is made effectual in our lives through faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and choosing to follow Christ’s teaching for the rest of our lives. LDS article 1:3 teaches that, “Through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel” (emphasis mine). This is a direct contradiction to the way to heaven taught in the Bible. In addition to an unsavable Christ, this is a works-based righteousness, which contradicts the teaching of Scripture (Rom. 3:20, Gal. 2:16, Eph. 2:8-9). Scripture teaches that we are not saved by our works or efforts or obedience, but by putting faith alone in the Person and finished work of the Jesus of the Bible. Salvation cannot be both by works and by grace: “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace” (Rom. 11:6). Entrance into heaven is not by our effort, but faith alone in what Christ has done: “When the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness…” (Titus 3:4-5). “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law” (Rom. 3:28).

In Mormonism salvation is less about Christ’s penal substitutionary atoning work, and more about trying hard to follow Christ’s example and develop god-like attributes. But trying hard will not save (Rom. 3:19-20). Trusting in Christ’s righteous life, death, and resurrection in my place alone will (1 Pet. 2:24).

Mormonism also teaches a form of salvation offered through vicarious baptism. A deceased individual can have a baptism performed in the Temple on their behalf. The deceased then have the opportunity to embrace that vicarious work. Yet, Scripture teaches no such thing.

~ Eric Davis

[loveerran]

What does 'Sensitivity, kindness, compassion and Christlike love' feel like?

A new church policy affecting transgender members of the LDS church has recently been implemented. This new Policy of Exclusion severely restricts or eliminates baptism (38.2.8.9), fellowship and opportunities for service for transgender members - including transgender children. Insofar as I am able to tell, it treats transgender members, who have transitioned in any way, worse than convicted child molester members (treatment of convicted child abusers who are members, including child sexual abuse, in 38.6.2.5 vs. guidance for church participation of transgender members, including transgender children).

If the default setting for a transgender member, including a transgender child, is to be treated by their congregation more severely than a convicted adult sexual predator of children, can you see why some of us are having difficulty feeling the church's stated 'sensitivity, kindness, compassion and Christlike love' for us? Why we may feel we are not part of 'All are welcome'?

[nerdygaymormon]

A Brief History of the LDS Church's Transgender Teachings and Policies

Gender identity and gender roles are important in LDS theology and practices. For most of the 1800s, church presidents Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had men, women, and children sit separately for all Sunday meetings. Nowadays, some of the Sundays church meetings are still divided by biological sex. Temple worship is also similarly divided.

For decades, the LDS Church believed that in the premortal life, when intelligences were organized into spirits that they may have chosen whether to live as male or female during mortality, and that poor choices during their time on earth could demote them back to a genderless condition. Joseph Fielding Smith, who was made an apostle in 1910 and became president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1970, was well known for teaching that those who do not reach the Celestial Kingdom will be neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings.

As a teenager in the 1980's, I remember being in Sunday School class and the teacher saying that when we're resurrected we can look down, and if we don't see a penis or vagina then we know we're not making it to the Celestial Kingdom.

Along with this, for many years the LDS Church seems to have viewed all queerness as a form of gender confusion, whether it was a man thinking he's a woman or a man who is attracted to other men.

As the fight over gay marriage ramped up, the teaching about genderless spiritual beings was replaced with the idea that gender is forever and this was incorporated into the 1995 Family Proclamation which states that "gender is an essential characteristic of individual pre-mortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."

The idea is that each of us are a son or daughter of heterosexual & cisgender heavenly parents, and we are meant to become like them. There is a strict binary of spiritual gender identities and gender roles. Ideally, our bodies should be formed in a way that reflects our spiritual body, including our spiritual gender, but the reality of the physical world is that things often don't work as we'd expect them to, but that doesn't change our spiritual gender.

Let me take this moment to point out that the notion of gender being eternal does not exist in scripture, this is a fairly recent evolution.

And while the idea is that gender is an innate and unchangeable part of our souls, the Church has also felt that gender needs to be nurtured, protected, and defended. There have been many rules about what women may wear to BYU and to Sunday services. For many years the advice to leaders on how to counsel with young men experiencing same sex attraction was to have them spend time around manly men and participate in masculine activities, and to not wear androgynous or feminine styles.

For a long time, LDS Church leaders were more aware of homosexuality and focused on this, and their mentions of trans people remained pretty infrequent.

In 1980, Spencer W. Kimball was president of the LDS Church and was outspoken opponent of homosexuality, however he authorized the sealing of a trans woman to her husband in the Washington, D.C. temple. Perhaps in response to this, later that year LDS authorities updated the official General Handbook of Instructions to officially prohibit “transsexual operations.” The handbook stated that “members who have undergone transsexual operations must be excommunicated” and that “after excommunication such a person is not eligible for baptism.”

I first got access to Handbook 1 in 2016, and excommunication was still the standard, although it said "elective transsexual operations" (not sure when the word "elective" was added). Surgery was the boundary line which if crossed would result in excommunication. However, the phrase "elective transsexual operations" recognized there are some circumstances where such operations are required or aren't the choice of the individual. For example, a man whose genitals were injured and couldn't be kept, or an intersex person who had surgery performed on them as an infant or child.

Any individual who was considering "elective transsexual surgery" was not allowed to be baptized, but for an individual who had undergone "transsexual surgery" and now wanted to be baptized, it had to be approved by the First Presidency. If they were allowed to be baptized, they would not be allowed to receive the priesthood or participate in gender-separated temple rites (which limited them to doing baptisms).

There was some wiggle room on whether top surgery is considered "transsexual surgery" and depended on the local leader's interpretation. There was no policy on transitioning in ways that didn't involve surgery, such as hormone therapies, “cross dressing,” or other means of living out one’s gender.

In January 2015, Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, "I think we need to acknowledge that while we have been acquainted with lesbians and homosexuals for some time, being acquainted with the unique problems of a transgender situation is something we have not had so much experience with, and we have some unfinished business in teaching on that." This reflects the growing awareness of trans individuals and showed some humility on his part. Elder Oaks had often spoken out on homosexuality and gay marriage, but this statement was thoughtful and many took it as cautiously optimistic.

Some transgender Mormons in explaining that their bodies do not reflect their gender identity would point to the Family Proclamation which says "gender" is eternal but not necessarily their sex. In response, in 2019 Elder Oaks said that “the intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation and as used in Church statements and publications since that time is biological sex at birth.”

In 2020, a major revision of the Church's general Handbooks were made. Handbook 1 (which was only available to bishoprics, stake presidencies, and General Authorities) was combined with Handbook 2 and put on the Church's website for all to see. This revision included major changes for transgender members.

The term "elective transsexual surgery" was gone, and now any social, medical or surgical transitioning would bring restrictions. Many saw this as more restrictive, it took away the space to transition in ways other than surgery while remaining in good standing as a member. Some saw it as a step at being more accommodating as excommunication was not the de facto punishment for transitioning. A church member could decide if transitioning was important enough to them that they'd be willing to be without a temple recommend.

The 2024 Handbook update seems like they felt some local church leaders had taken things further than had been anticipated, and so they had to plug in the gaps from the 2020 Handbook that leaders had used to be inclusive and accommodating of their trans members. Now members who transitioned in any were not allowed to be baptized, restricted from holding almost all callings, specified which meetings & activities they may attend, forbids trans youth and young single adults from overnight activities, and even has specific rules about under how a trans person may use the restroom.

[mikkeneko]

I decided to make this its own post for two reasons: one, I didn't want to derail a post that is about Judaism with a discussion of a different faith and two, it was really only one of several posts I've seen recently that stuck out to me as being "man, this is way off-base."

This is not so much about "people are saying mean things about this religion and it hurts my feelings!" but it is definitely about "people are making statements that represent a wildly skewed and inaccurate picture of the reality, and I can't tell whether they're being hyperbolic on purpose or think they're genuinely telling the truth." This is not a question of whether any given church is good or bad; this is a question of whether there is or can be a distinct entity that serves as a single unified church or faith in American Christian tradition (spoiler: No.)

Here's the basic message: Any discussion of "the Christian god" or "the Christian faith" or "American Christianity" needs to be taken with a big honking asterisk that there is no single portrayal of God, or Christianity, or spirituality and faith that conveys accurate information about the entire breadth of American Christianity.

There is no single American Christian Church. None. The single biggest branch of American Christianity, Southern Evangelical Baptist, makes up at its broadest 30% of all American Christians (12% of the overall population.) The rest are split between Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Adventist, Congregationalist, and a dozen other even tinier branches, before you even get into the more far-out variants that people have ongoing arguments as to whether they even really count as "Christian." (LDS, Unitarians, and possibly Mennonites fall into this category.) Most of the major branches share a lot of common ground, but there's an enormous amount of variation -- they disagree widely on concepts such as the existence or nonexistence of Hell; the mechanics of conversion or salvation; the requirements of baptism or confirmation; whether prostylezation is required, encouraged or even permitted; what kind of sexualities are or are not accepted; God as an active or non-active role in the world; how 'sin' works or if it's even a thing; the existence or not of saints; the divinity or not of Christ; or even the idea of an anthropomorphic God at all. Some are progressive, some are fundamentalist, some are fundamentalist in ways that are completely at odds with the popular perception of what those fundaments are. I personally know one Methodist pastor who also believes and teaches about God as a "oneness of the universe" and have met others who conceive of God as "that which spans the space between the limits of our understanding and the limits of our universe." You cannot categorically state that all American Christians share a common notion on any of these topics.

Other statements I've seen recently that just made me go "what? no?"

That the USA was founded by religious extremists and That's Why America is Like That. Only one or two of the original settlements were founded for this purpose. Some were founded with an explicit purpose of total freedom of (or from) religion; others were entrepreneurial ventures with nothing to say on the topic of religion at all. When the guiding documents of the American state were put together the clause of freedom of religion was included front and center precisely because they didn't want religious extremists to be steering the ship.

That the majority of USAmericans are in cults and don't even realize they're in cults. This requires both an extremely broad definition of “cult” (to encompass pretty much any branch of Christianity, not only the more extremely evangelical ones) and severely over-estimates how many people in the US are practicing Christians (less than half.)

That the "Christian God" is intended to function as a "Great Uniter" into which other faiths can be folded; This is not a Protestant thing. Most Protestant faiths are not syncretic to the degree Catholicism is (or at all,) since there wasn't a motivating political entity backing their creeds to make them so. Again: Not all branches of American Protestantism require, encourage, or even permit prostylezation.

On that note: Not all Christians are Catholic. This isn't news, right? People know this, right? This is one of those things that I always assumed was very common knowledge, and was very surprised to run into people who were not aware of this (who either think that all Christians or Catholic, or else that Catholics are not Christian at all, depending on which side of the equation they're approaching from.) Protestant and Catholic Christianity are very very distinct entities both spiritually and politically, and in the USA, Catholic Christianity is a minority religion and is mostly (though not exclusively) practiced in minority demographic communities. Of 46 presidents so far only one has been Catholic, and a lot of the opposition to JFK's appointment was people being suspicious of his Catholicism since it was thought that his loyalty to the Church might supersede his loyalty to the US. American Christianity is mostly Protestant, not Catholic, and Protestant Christianity does not function at all the way Catholicism does. We had a whole Reformation about this. Any take that refers to "The Church" in America as a single united entity that dictates theology to its outreaching branches is... off-base.

What certainly is true is that a number of individual churches in the US have organized around the aim of consolidating social and political power, have worked at advancing their members to positions of power in order to protect and promote their interests, and thus are over-represented and have outsized influence on the political sphere. The ones that do this, as well as the ones that put emphasis on proselytizing and on money-making, tend to self-select for being the most visible and infamous because their business model is expansive by nature. That's certainly the case for the SEB in the American South, or the LDS in Utah. I really get the feeling when people use these broad terms that they are thinking either of the SEB (again, not even a majority among American Protestants!) or of the Catholic church (even less so!)  But not only do not all Americans agree with those beliefs, they don't even agree with each other.

[phoenixandthestral]

-staring down at your list of random names and trying to ✨feel✨ their presence

-scrunchie actually from the 80s with zero elasticity left

-you and all the other teens trying to be Solemn and Spiritual while changing into your white jumpsuits

-Laundry chute

-Alone in a small room with several men as they put their hands on your heads and name you as the proxy for the dead and your like "this definitely isn't a cult or weird in anyway"

-"...I baptize you for and on behalf of ____, who is DEAD..."

-the cards are conveniently color coded pink and blue so a girl doesn't accidently get baptized for a man that wouldn't work don't be ridiculous

-lining up for the temple worker to verify everyone's recommend to make sure all the teens are worthy and in good standing

-THE BULLS

thinking about baptisms for the dead.

- that man's ™️ hairy arm

-the fucking water dripping down my neck at confirmations

-safety pinning the key to my jumpsuit

-whatever the fuck underwear those where

-ouch my eyes

[goodoldfashionedengineer]

I like analysing shit.

I like Red Hood: Lost Days

So I am going to analyse some of it.

To start with, lets look at the titles of the issues.

#1: The First Step

#2: Baptism

#3: School

#4: Higher Learning

#5: After School Activities

#6: Benediction and Commencement

What immediately strikes me is how all of these are relevant to the issue AND as a whole. They are describing a life fresh from birth to how that life progresses until graduation. Extremely important when considering that this is basically Jason's second life. He died and now he is "reborn" after being put into the Lazarus pit.

The First Step: The fact that the title name was on the page in which Jason was pushed into the Pit lets me believe that this IS the first step, as Red Hood: Lost Days explains the time between him being found by Talia to him becoming Red Hood. This is the first step in him becoming the Red Hood.

Baptism: Not exactly clear as to what "Baptism" is referring to here. I have multiple ideas. First, there is the possibility that it is a continuation of the last issue, as that issue ended with Jason being pushed into the pit and in religious baptisms, water is usually connected to it as the person being baptized is getting water poured onto their head. But it could also mean a non-religious baptism as in he is starting a new role. He finally gets to train with a clear mind and can properly start his journey.

Issue #3-#5 are relatively similar, all him explaining his training and stopping the evil schemes his teachers are involved with.

Benediction and Commencement: Commencement, he has completed his training or "graduated" if you take the school aspect into account from issue 3 to 5. Benediction, he gets his blessings from Talia to finally confront Bruce after stalling him so long. Commencement, "the beginning of something new". The issue ends with him picking up the Red Hood helmet, before that, he met up with Hush. The beginning of the Red Hood.

Next I want to focus a bit on religious imagery. I am not a big fan of it in general, but considering that words like "Baptism" and "Benediction" are in the titles, it is note-worthy. If it is something you're uncomfortable with, feel free to skip this section

I have seen people make the point that this cover:

Has similarities to pictures of Mary holding a dead Jesus.

And now that I think about it more, I can see why and they are pretty good stand-ins.

Jason came back from the dead, like Jesus.

Talia found Jason after he came back. She considers it a miracle. Like fate WANTS Jason to live. He wandered into her life. She isn't so much as interfering with fate, as stepping out of its way.

And then you have this page:

Jason as he has his arms spread wide, legs forming almost a straight line. Similar to Jesus on the cross.

The Lazarus pit isn't green. It's orange and yellow. It shines so bright. Ra's says it burns in his heart. He tells Talia it could turn Jason mad in a few months, years or decades. That she has unleashed a curse. A pestilence. Pestilence being one of the for Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And so, the Lazarus Pit becomes a symbol for Hell.

The fact that Jason and Talia are more distorted versions of the religious figures they could represent becomes more prominent as the story goes on. In the bible, Jesus goes back to Heaven to rejoin with his Father. In this story, Talia is told and knows that she should return Jason to Bruce. But she doesn't. Because Jason will see it as betrayal and he wouldn't forgive her for that.

My last and favourite point is how RH: LD is the perfect set up to Under the Red Hood.

Jason explains how it isn't about the Joker. Or Bruce. Or him. It's about the three of them.

Bruce was supposed to protect him.

Joker killed him.

Bruce didn't avenge him.

He tried to kill both of them only to NOT do it and walk away.

Jason died away from Gotham in Ethiopia, but not before being beaten with a crowbar, the building he was in having exploded and then asphyxiating due to the smoke.

Jason almost killed the Joker by setting him on fire. (Explosion)

He initially wanted to do it in another location. (Ethiopia)

He wanted to do it slowly. (Crowbar)

Jason says when the pain would hit the Joker, he would scream. Until it hit his throat. His lungs. (Asphyxiating)

He is reliving his own death. He wants his murderer to go through the agony he did. An eye for an eye one could say.

"Reliving his own death" is an objective statement here, as Jason sees the Joker swinging a crowbar that is dripping with his own blood while at the same time also standing right above the Joker, who is drenched in gasoline.

Now I want you to compare these two scenes. This is when he was about to kill the Joker:

The panels switch between Jason and the firelighter, present Joker and past Joker. The firelighter, the device that would end the Joker's life, comes more and more into the focus. Until he disengages it on the last panel.

Now to the second scene, when Jason planted a bomb under the Batmobile and was about to detonate it.

The panels switch between Batman and Jason. Jason is hovering over the detonater. Until he pulls away.

When Jason explained to Talia why he walked away from the Joker, he said that it wasn't enough. It was only ever about the three of them, not just Joker. His plan doesn't include murdering Batman anymore.

But the reason Jason gave Talia why he didn't kill Bruce? "I couldn't let him get off so easy. He'd never know what happened. He'd never know knwo why. He'd never know it was me." One could wonder if we are supposed to see this as a parallel as well. If we should apply this reasoning of why he didn't kill Bruce to why he didn't kill Joker.

The Joker would never know why Jason killed him. He doesn't even know that it IS Jason who is about to murder him.

And while is plan doesn't include killing Bruce anymore. Nobody said anything about the Joker.

As I said, perfect setup to Under the Red Hood.

[heathersdesk]

My grandfather was killed in a hit and run accident in 1978.

His mother and sister struggled with life after that. They decided to go on a trip across the United States together to get away from things for a while.

I discovered this trip when I was going through photo albums and suddenly saw a place I recognized.

The Salt Lake Temple.

They went to many places during that trip. But there was something truly special to me that, in one of the worst seasons of their lives, they ended up at the temple.

I served part of my mission at Temple Square. I was waiting for a visa to Brazil that I began to think was never coming. I had a truly horrendous time in the MTC babysitting a district of Elders who spent weeks on end bullying me and tearing down my self-esteem. I was told directly by someone, I forget who now, that I was being sent there to recover. And when I realized that the mission had no young Elders in it at all, that it was only Sisters and senior couples, I came to appreciate what that meant.

I had so many wild interactions there with so many people. Some of them were strange, like the guy who viewed the Book of Mormon as proof of alien interactions with humans. There were moments of heartbreak, like the woman who was in tears at the Christus statue who attacked us when we checked in on her. There were moments of pure delight, like when an LDS family with two young daughters came to that same Christus statue. The oldest girl, no older than 4 or 5, squealed "JESUS" and ran to the Savior's feet, little sister in tow. Whenever I hear someone mention the teaching to become as a little child, she is exactly who I think of.

There were also moments that were meant solely for me, like when I met the first Sister to ever be called to the Boston mission I had hoped to go to to wait for my visa. Boston has a large Brazilian population, many of whom are members of the Church. I had begged in prayer to be sent there and was told by other people it wouldn't happen because "Sisters don't go there." I had an entire conversation with the woman who was going to be that change. It seemed cruel to me at the time, dangling the carrot of something I wanted right in front of my face. In time, I've realized it was so I would remember that God does miracles and is aware of the desires of my heart, even if it means I don't get what I want. Someone needed to exercise enough faith to push that door open for women. I put my full weight behind it, and I can be just as proud that it opened for someone else.

But some of my favorite people I met there were people who just made me laugh. I met a Jewish convert from New York who told us his conversion story, how what drew him in was the Plan of Salvation. He summarized it in a New York accent in a voice I can still hear in my mind: "So you're a god, eventually. But can you pay RENT?!"

One of my favorite people I met was a Scottish convert named Agnes who was doing the Mormon trail across the US, beginning in New England and ending in Utah. She was a much older woman and told us all about her pilgrimage, and how she had cuddled with the oxen at the baptismal font in the Manhattan New York Temple. (I've been there. You enter into the baptistry on face level with them, or did the last time I was there.) She shared her testimony with us, and I'll never forget what she said.

She explained that the story of Joseph Smith was really hard to get her mind around. It truly is an insane set of asks: angels, gold plates, polygamy, and all the rest. She talked about how she came to accept it—not through any kind of empirical evidence or proof, but through faith and what that looked like.

For her, it was the recognition that being LDS was the best way she had ever encountered to live an excellent life. She said that the worst case scenario she could imagine is one where God would say to her, "You know that whole business with Joseph Smith was a load of crock, right? But you lived such a good life, I have to let you in anyway."

That has always stayed with me. Agnes was one of many people who came to the Square looking for something. I saw people come there looking for faith, or a fight, and truly everything in between. And it's only now that I'm older and wiser that I see something clearly now that I couldn't see then.

Agnes didn't need to come to Temple Square to find faith. She already had a tremendous amount of faith. She, and many others, were looking for conviction. I was at Temple Square long enough to learn you don't get that from a place. While a place like Temple Square can illuminate the possibilities for conviction through the lens of history, it doesn't bestow that conviction through contact or proximity alone. Conviction is made from the materials of your own life and your own choices. Your will, how firmly you place yourself into an immovable and unyielding position, is the measure of your convictions. It comes from within.

Faith is the decision to believe in what you cannot see, and what cannot be proven objectively. That never goes away. Nothing we experience in life, no place we ever visit, will create a shortcut under, over, or around that decision to believe, to trust in God. Faith, at its core, is a decision. The ability to continue making that decision over and over again, under all species of hardship and opposition, is conviction.

Where Jesus walked is nowhere near as important as how Jesus walked, and with whom. The same is true for all of us. Our walk with God might never take us anywhere near a temple because of where God has called us to go. But we are the holiest dwelling places of God on earth—not any of the buildings we've made.

Be a holy place of living faith wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be. Worship God, no matter what places you can or cannot enter. There is more than one way to access a temple. One way is to enter a place that people invite God to dwell. The other is to become that place. There can be no separation from God where communion never ceases. It is the refuge that is unassailable by others for as long as the person wills it so. The torch within will not go out.

The temple is not special because it has some holy essence that springs forth out of nothing, to passively be absorbed by others. The temple is special because it directs people to Jesus Christ, who is the giver of healing and peace. The temple is just a building. It's Jesus Christ that is the true power behind it all, whose objective is to make you, me, and every person you know the holiest creature you've ever beheld. You are the end goal.

[fox-bright]

#though it IS fun to watch their faces when I say shit like 'when I was eight they told me if I was very very good now #I'd get to be white in the Celestial kingdom'

to put it mildly, HUH???????

Oh, man! So. It was once stated Doctrine (and is now just under-the-table doctrine) that the Mark of Cain was Black skin; that everyone of Black ethnicity was supposed to be enslaved, to work off the debt of Cain.

There's a whole bunch of scripture in the Book of Mormon about two purportedly Native American peoples, the Nephites and the Lamanites, who frequently were at odds. One civilization would gain righteousness and the other would lose it, typical adventure novel epic style bullshit--but the righteousness was marked, among other things, by the darkening or lightening of their skin. The darker skin, then, of the Native Americans in Joseph Smith's time, was used as justification for Mormons enslaving and massacring them.

This belief mutated, some, as Joseph Smith tuned the scriptures; eventually it was decided that there had been a war in heaven before any of us were born, and those of us who hewed to God's side from the start showed our righteousness on our skin and were born white. Everyone who had been less valiant could be marked by the various darknesses of theirs, and Black people were the very lowest of all, probably having sided with Satan for a while and then turned coat.

But righteous acts in life could make you paler, and while they'd never make you (the individual) white, they would lighten your family, so that hopefully in a few generations you'd be such a righteous family that only the most righteous souls were sent to be born in it, and all your grandchildren would be white.

This belief continued to be stated very baldly for a long time. In 1960, Church President Spencer W. Kimball said: "I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today … they are fast becoming a white and delightsome people…For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised…The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation."

So, big yikes, right?

I was born into the Church in Anaheim, CA in 1982, daughter of a FilAm woman and a white man, both of them converts, both of them also born and raised in California. We stayed there for the first few years of my life, and then moved to Arizona, where I grew up in a town that despite its mere 8k population could support multiple LDS church wards. Our attendance at church was only fitful until I turned eight, when my parents really buckled down about us getting there every Sunday. Eight years old is the Age of Accountability; that is, the time when you can be expected to have learned good from bad, and have the agency to decide which way to walk. While there's a lot of poison you'll take in as a Mormon kid before that age, it really ramps up after you're baptized at eight.

So it was when I was eight that I heard for the first time (though far from the last) that my choosing to accept baptism put me on the right path, and that if I continued to Choose the Right for all my life--that is, I stayed chaste, earned all my blessings through righteousness, married a returned missionary in a Temple marriage and bore him a quiverful of children, raised them in the knowledge of God and the Church, and eventually died as a good matriarch--then when I made it to the Celestial Kingdom (the highest of the LDS' tiered heavens), I would find myself remade. No longer would I have the mark of my Preexistence sin; I'd be washed clean. Blue-eyed. Blonde-haired. And skin as white as cream.

[catoperated]

Back when I was LDS in the 90s, the only thing the church could use was death records to do their baptisms for the dead. If a name wasn’t on record as being Mormon, then some kids on a temple trip would get dunked in their names. This was one of the major reasons I split away… that and being a big ol queer fit for no Celestial Kingdom leading to me getting excommunicated anyway.

Now those “fun” genealogy and DNA testing sites are giving them much more data to work with, and you sign away the rights to it as part of the small print in the agreement. All those dead relatives you found, whatever religion they might have been? On the list for baptism. It’s some real super villain shit, but they truly want every soul on earth baptized Mormon whether they like it or not. The hack of 23andme leading to targeted attacks of living people is also just a feature to them.

The sad thing is Mormons are so throughly entrenched in the market for DNA tests and genealogy that it’s very difficult to find something that doesn’t link back to them. Outside of tithes from members it’s one of their biggest money makers and a source for “mapping and saving all souls.”