Who Will Be The Savior of The Republican Party?

Donald J. Trump

Donald J. Trump continues to fill up all the media outlets with what has become familiar behavior:

1. He seems never to have met a Republican that he likes. Name a Republican and he's immediately branded as "low energy," "a stupid idiot," "little boy Marco," "the weakest Republican candidate this party ever had," "a choker," "a liar," "the worst liar I have ever met," "the worst human being I've ever known," "you don't have one single endorsement among your Senate buddies, you should be ashamed of yourself," and the list goes on in endless epithets.

2. Yet he says, "I have so many friends." He cites his many friends in business, those around the world, in show business, in politics. "We're going to start winning, winning, winning, we're going to win so much you won't even believe it!" He truly is bigger than life, or so he would have us believe.

3. "I love you all - everybody in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada," (and he's just getting started on that line. We would suppose what with Super Tuesday coming up he will eventually get around to all of us whom he loves, loves, loves if we vote for him).

4. He hates Megyn Kelly of Fox News who dared to suggest his insults against women might be considered crass, or worse, just downright hateful. He calls her "a horrible person," "with blood coming everywhere out of her," and then boycotts her routinely instead of encountering her again. Is Mr. Macho really afraid of "that bimbo" Megyn Kelly? Or does she just come in for "fair and balanced" treatment he gives to anyone who dares to oppose him?

5. He's going to build a wall, "and now it just got ten feet higher," when the former president of Mexico suggested that Trump could just go pound sound if he thinks Mexico will pay for the wall. And Trump then goes on and on about the balance of trade between us and Mexico as though balancing our balance of trade accounts will somehow magically produce the $10 billion to build the wall. For a Wharton School of Business graduate, he must have been sleeping through Economics 101.

6. Article after article appears daily around the collective political water cooler of the American electorate. "What if Trump actually becomes our nominee," they stutter in disbelief. I know people so offended by Trump that they will vote for anyone else, yes, even a Democrat, rather than Trump.

7. There are other articles now appearing since the endorsement of Governor Chris Christie who suggest that Trump might just be a great choice as a nominee, since he's energized the Republican base like no one else has done since Ronald Reagan. Then they quickly add that Trump will rival Reagan among the greatest presidents. Seriously, I'm not making any of this up, am I?

Marco Rubio

Ted Cruz

Those are just seven observations off the top of my head that I've been following for the past several weeks. He's successfully thumped all of his would-be opponents into submission, and the field has narrowed to three with Trump, Rubio and Cruz. The desperation is now palpable. Like so many others who follow politics, this idea of "a savior" has been rattling around in my head with a hope that someone - ANYONE - might just be the ticket for America's future. But today it came into perfect focus for me.

Along with Patsy, we teach the fourteen and fifteen year-olds in Sunday School in our ward. Today we discussed "the doctrine of Christ," and spent our time together mostly in 2 Nephi 31. We had a good group today of seven delightful young ladies and one young man, as we took turns reading verses in the chapter. The topic heading is appropriate:

The “doctrine of Christ” is that all men everywhere must have faith in Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. The doctrine of Christ is the only way to be saved in the kingdom of God. It is the foundation of the Church and the central message of its missionaries.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson

I also taught the fourth Sunday lesson in the high priest group today, the one devoted to selected sermons from the most recent General Conferences. Today, our stake leadership asked us to reflect on the talk by Elder D. Todd Christofferson, titled "Why the Church." Punctuation nerd that I am, I initially pondered why that statement didn't have a question mark at the end. However, he made a statement, he wasn't asking a question.

We had a profitable conversation together considering his three main reasons why the Church exists and must exist if we are to be enabled to claim the blessing of eternal life. He offered his three reasons:

1. How does His Church accomplish the Lord’s purposes? It is important to recognize that God’s ultimate purpose is our progress. His desire is that we continue “from grace to grace, until [we receive] a fulness” of all He can give. That requires more than simply being nice or feeling spiritual. It requires faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism of water and of the Spirit, and enduring in faith to the end. One cannot fully achieve this in isolation, so a major reason the Lord has a church is to create a community of Saints that will sustain one another in the “strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life.”

2. There is a second major reason the Savior works through a church, His Church, and that is to achieve needful things that cannot be accomplished by individuals or smaller groups. One clear example is dealing with poverty. It is true that as individuals and families we look after the physical needs of others, “imparting to one another both temporally and spiritually according to their needs and their wants.” But together in the Church, the ability to care for the poor and needy is multiplied to meet the broader need, and hoped-for self-reliance is made a reality for very many. Further, the Church, its Relief Societies, and its priesthood quorums have the capacity to provide relief to many people in many places affected by natural disasters, war, and persecution.

3. The final reason I will mention for the Lord to have established His Church is the most unique — the Church is, after all, the kingdom of God on the earth. . .

Its destiny is to establish Zion in preparation for the return and millennial rule of Jesus Christ. Before that day, it will not be a kingdom in any political sense — as the Savior said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Rather, it is the repository of His authority in the earth, the administrator of His holy covenants, the custodian of His temples, the protector and proclaimer of His truth, the gathering place for scattered Israel, and “a defense, and … a refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth.”

Rev. Paul Scalia

When I concluded the lesson, I left about five minutes at the end. The high priest group leader arose and stated, "I was impressed recently by reading the eulogy delivered by Justice Antonin Scalia's son, Paul, who is a Catholic priest. I think it might be the finest eulogy I've ever heard." Then he read in part:

We are gathered here because of one man. A man known personally to many of us, known only by reputation to even more. A man loved by many, scorned by others. A man known for great controversy, and for great compassion. That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth.

It is He whom we proclaim. Jesus Christ, son of the father, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, buried, risen, seated at the right hand of the Father. It is because of him. because of his life, death and resurrection that we do not mourn as those who have no hope, but in confidence we commend Antonin Scalia to the mercy of God.

I came home and read the whole eulogy, and I concluded it is truly masterful. You can read it here.

So today, pondering the words of a living Apostle and a Catholic priest in the quietude of Pine Valley on a warm winter day, I have concluded there will be no savior in the offing to rescue the Republican Party, the Democrat Party or any other political entity we may have yet to hear about if a third party emerges out this political gumbo soup we are in today. We know the end result is the Savior's Second Coming, but the details between here and there do not bode well for would-be political anti-Christs who come among us posing as saviors.

May our descent into the moral abyss not be forever irretrievable or permanent, and may it someday be reversed if it is possible. That said (and I don't want to appear too negative here), we will be rescued by THE Savior Jesus Christ if we are attuned to His salvation, His resurrection, and His Church and kingdom on the earth today. And that may happen for Republicans and Democrats alike. In the end, we all have a lot more in common than we may imagine.

And that's not a bad thing. . .

Antonin Scalia, May We Find His Jurisprudence Peer Someday

Justice Antonin Scalia

Like many conservatives (and liberals too!), I was saddened to learn of the sudden and unexpected death of Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia over the weekend. The accolades and the tributes for him will go on for some time, I suspect. He is being widely lauded as the finest writer, legal mind and staunch defender of the originalist point of view when it comes to interpreting the Constitution that the Court may have ever seen. Finding his peer to replace him will be difficult. He has served longer than anyone else on the current Court.

The news had barely broken before the political wrangling had begun, including the opening moments of silence followed by "thermonuclear war" among the combatants at the latest Republican debate last Saturday night. Even before the ink was dry on the story of Scalia's death, President Obama signaled his determination to move ahead with his nomination "in due time."

In the one corner you have the liberals, who would love nothing more than putting forward yet another progressive judge through the nominating process President Obama will no doubt undertake at his earliest opportunity to cement his legacy in place.

In the opposing corner you have Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who immediately put out a press statement indicating the nomination belongs to the next president of the United States, and not the current lame duck one. McConnell's argument is certainly valid based on history.

Whoever Obama nominates, the smart money says it's dead on arrival. Anything less than a strict constructionist like Scalia will most certainly tilt the Court in favor of judicial activism. We've already witnessed that unlikely phenomenon with Chief Justice John Roberts surprising everyone by steering the Court with his majority opinions when Obamacare was upheld first, then the legalization of gay marriage.

It is not political hyperbole to state the intensity of this election season has shifted into high gear. While mildly entertaining until now, what with an avowed Communist Bernie Sanders challenging Hillary Clinton, who is almost certainly guilty of felonies over her e-mail handling while Secretary of State (but not likely to face any jail time), and billionaire Donald Trump continuing to suck all the oxygen out of the Republican nominating process, the tone of the debate will likely change where all three branches of government - the executive, the judiciary and the legislative - will all be involved.

Of course, few would doubt the ongoing dominance of the Republicans in maintaining control of both houses of the legislative branch (but even that is always an open question). The political divide over what will happen in debates over this POTUS nominating process will be epic, but not unheard of in the past. That said, we will see the Senate's role looming larger than ever in the coming months leading up to the election. Unless the Republicans close ranks and refuse to act on President Obama's nomination, the makeup of a new Court before the election would undoubtedly compromise the historical precedents of waiting to fill the post until after the election.

Let's look at the facts as they exist under the Constitution:

There is ample precedent in our past history on the side of those who advocate waiting until the next president is selected. Article 2, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, the so-called "Appointments Clause," allows a president to appoint specified public officials only with the “advice and consent” of the Senate, and the key word here is "consent." Though he may try to make this appointment on his own as a "recess appointment" when the Senate is not in session, he would exceed his authority in attempting it. Only the Senate may ultimately confirm the president's nominee to serve as a Supreme Court Justice.

Historically, it has almost universally been the case that the closer we get to the end of a president's term, the more a delay has been viewed favorably. I read this morning that from President John Tyler forward, we have seen sometimes extended delays in filling vacancies on the Supreme Court. We think the country is deeply divided now, but probably no more than it was in Tyler's time. The same conditions certainly are in place today.

There are a number of practical reasons for delay, not the least of which is giving the American voters one more chance in getting it right. The crux of the Roberts' majority opinion in upholding Obamacare was in essence, "Don't look to the Court to bail you out, America, when you make poor political choices." He was concerned about the Court not being politicized, but his rulings may have done exactly what he did not intend. Perhaps by waiting for the next president to be chosen, American voters will respect the Court more and the new president's choice for the Supreme Court will be more widely embraced by the majority, assuming the Senate majority remains in the same hands as the new president's. At least that is the most optimistic view of the matter.

In my extensive reading this morning, someone even suggested if the new president were a woman (let's hope it isn't THAT woman), by putting forward a nominee now Obama would preempt her preference. If the next president were a strict constructionist like Scalia, then that new president should have the right to put forward a nominee more in the vein of Scalia. All of that in my mind suggests that Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio would undoubtedly be more reliable choices certainly than Hillary Clinton. Who knows for sure what a President Donald J. Trump or a President Bernie Sanders would do? If for no other reason, undertaking a deliberative and thorough search for finding the peer of Justice Scalia is worthwhile and should not be rushed. We've had ample precedents for waiting longer than a year.

It would certainly be in keeping with Obama's nature to try to ram through a first-ever recess appointment, but he would likely run head-long into a legal wall of his own making that has held such appointments cannot be upheld without Senate consent.

Supreme Court Building, Washington D.C.

I'm remembering this morning that there was a 2014 decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, where the SCOTUS, led by Scalia's brilliant writing in concurrence, ruled against recess appointments. It wasn't even a close vote (9-0), where they struck down three of the president’s recess appointments. In essence the high Court ruled them unconstitutional. Those appointments were attempted by Obama during a "pro forma congressional break" of only three days.

Talk about prescient irony, it was Scalia himself who wrote what some dubbed a “withering” concurrence opinion, when he warned against transgressing against the text of the U.S. Constitution. Scalia vigorously stated: “The Court’s decision transforms the recess-appointment power from a tool carefully designed to fill a narrow and specific need into a weapon to be wielded by future Presidents against future Senates,” and be believed the real intent of the Founders was to limit, not allow recess appointments beyond what they had intended.

Bristling at the sudden and arbitrary "10-day" recess invention attempted by Justice Breyer in the majority decision, Scalia added: “A self-aggrandizing practice adopted by one branch well after the founding, often challenged, and never before blessed by this Court - in other words, the sort of practice on which the majority relies in this case - does not relieve us of our duty to interpret the Constitution in light of its text, structure, and original understanding.” His biting accuracy will be missed.

My hope for our country is that we will find Scalia's peer in Constitutional integrity somewhere in this country. I am not one who is horrified at the thought of losing the Republic over this latest development, however. Scalia's death came out of left field and was surprising, when easily two or three other "expected" deaths might soon occur in the next few years, adding even more slots to fill on the SCOTUS, and raising the presidential sweepstakes to an even higher level. Remember, elections have consequences, as President Obama was so fond of reminding us all.

In sum: There is no precedent for taking this pending nomination out of the hands of the next president after the election of November 2016. Neither is there any legal foundation upon which a recess appointment could be justified.

I've used the word "precedent" a lot in this post. But my final word is that if the election season of 2016 has taught us anything, it is that relying upon historical precedents is shaky ground at best.

Are You a "Thinking Mormon" or a "Go-Along-to-Get-Along-Mormon"?

For many years in the Church there has been a constant battle between what used to be called the "intellectuals" vs. the "conservatives". Each faction had its proponents, and the intellectuals were sometimes characterized as those without a testimony, while the conservatives were considered the purists and the defenders of the faith. I suppose these factions and others will always exist in the Church. The more things change the more they remain the same.

It has seemed to me that in recent years the divisions continue to deepen. To be thought of as someone who doesn't think deeply and critically about one's faith is to be like the polling question among voters, "Do you consider yourself well-informed on the issues"? What right-thinking respondent wouldn't answer as an informed voter? So how many answer that question in the affirmative even if it's not true? In addition, who wants to be thought of as an intellectual laggard who merely goes along to get along in the Church without ever undertaking a rigorous and thoughtful approach to one's discipleship? Much better to be thought of as a stimulating intellectual than one who merely clings rigidly to the past traditions, so the reasoning goes.

President Brigham Young

This morning I read several articles, two of which stood out particularly. Before I go there, however, I was reflecting on a recent General Conference talk by Elder M. Russell Ballard, who urged his listeners to stay in "the Old Ship Zion". He senses, as we all do, there is much unrest within the ranks of the members of the Church for a host of reasons. That much has always been true, but there seems to be an escalation. Elder Ballard quotes President Brigham Young, who used the Old Ship Zion as a metaphor when he said:

“We are in the midst of the ocean. A storm comes on, and, as sailors say, she labors very hard. ‘I am not going to stay here,’ says one; ‘I don’t believe this is the “Ship Zion.”’ ‘But we are in the midst of the ocean.’ ‘I don’t care, I am not going to stay here.’ Off goes the coat, and he jumps overboard. Will he not be drowned? Yes. So with those who leave this Church. It is the ‘Old Ship Zion,’ let us stay in it.” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young [1997], 82–83).

Many bristle at any suggestion that we cling to the past without seeming to give any consideration to more "modern" ideas espoused by the progressives who would take the Church if they could into uncharted waters. In their haste to get ahead of the brethren they often err in their over-zealous certitude.

Natasha Helfer Parker

The first of the two articles that caught my eye came from Patheos.com. The author, Natasha Helfer Parker, is a Mormon clinical marriage and family therapist. who wrote "Double Binds Hurt Us". I encourage you to consider her thoughtful response to a recent Deseret News article about what appears to be an alarming increase in suicide deaths among the LGBT youth in the Church. As we all know, the Church's policy statement about the disposition of under-age children in the homes of gay and lesbian parents was meant to clarify the same issues that are involved in the homes of those parents who are engaged in polygamous communities to which the Church is opposed.

The Church believes in letting children who reach majority age of 18 make up their own minds about their religious preferences, rather than becoming the source of conflict between parents who stand in open rebellion to Church dictum over marriage between one man and one woman and their children. It's a reasonable policy position. But it seems in Parker's experience that it may stand in stark contrast to Christ's admonitions to love everyone unconditionally. Sometimes we seem to say, "I love you unconditionally with these conditions." Parker fairly points out it may actually be difficult to quantify the number of suicides attributed to confusion over the Church's policy, but that does not diminish our need to continue to focus on its effects.

Helfer points out that the double bind problem is real, and whether knowingly or unwittingly we often send dual-meaning messages that seem contradictory in our attempts to clarify positions. There is still much for us to do to improve our messaging and our outreach, and she gives a thoughtful treatise on this topic without seeming the least bit untrue to her core Mormon beliefs. She's a "thinking Mormon". I appreciate her contribution here.

We need look no further than our own hearts and souls in understanding the tensions that often arise over these issues. There is a perpetual war in mortality between what is referred to in Holy Writ as "the natural man" (see Mosiah 3:19) and our pure spirit. In the constant bombardment that swirls all around us in today's political climate, we must find peace in our own souls.

Peggy Fletcher Stack

The second article was written by Peggy Fletcher Stack, and appeared recently in The Salt Lake Tribune. Peggy has a gold-plated Mormon heritage as a great-granddaughter of President Heber J. Grant and a granddaughter of former US Senator Wallace F. Bennett. She's always been a bit conflicted, it would seem, with her roots and her intellectual bent, but I always appreciate her point of view, as I did when I read her article titled "Why top Mormon leaders' private writings may never become public".

There has always been a tension between Church leaders and Mormon historians over access to the archival contents involving what is perceived to be the "deep, dark secrets" every good Mormon historian would love to get their hands on. In recent years with the publications of the Joseph Smith Papers, in large part this criticism has been abated, but after reading Stack's article it occurs to me that enough will never be enough.

The article particularly resonated with me on a personal level. She observed:

In the 1980s, assistant church historian Richard E. Turley explains, the Utah-based faith began requiring all Mormon general authorities to sign an agreement, pledging that any "work product" — including their "journals, speeches, photographs and other records of enduring value" — belongs to the church's history department "for long-term preservation."

The Church History Library, he says, "seeks to make as much information as it can publicly available from these records within legal, ethical, and religious boundaries and practical resource constraints."

A week away from his 94th birthday, my father wrote the definitive biography about President Harold B. Lee. As his source documents, he used the hand-written journals of President Lee. Many years ago when he was finished with his book, Dad donated the original journals to the Church. What we didn't know as his family until a few months ago was that he had carefully transcribed and indexed all those journal entries on his typewriter and had intended to preserve them inside the family in perpetuity. He confided in me that he was having misgivings about that decision, and asked me to read thirty-plus years of content and give him my recommendation on their eventual disposition.

I did as he requested and thus became only the second person to have access to the complete record within the family. As I dove deeper into the contents, I felt as though I was treading on sacred ground. The thought continued to grow that this content did not really belong to us as his descendants. He was first and foremost the 11th President of the Church, and secondarily our grandfather.

Elder Steven E. Snow and L. Brent Goates

Obviously, the 1980s agreement to which Stack makes reference was not in force in the days of Harold B. Lee, but my recommendation was to turn over all the transcripts to the Church. The transfer was effected when Elder Steven E. Snow, the Church Historian, made a visit to Dad's home and personally secured the copies. They consisted of hundreds of sheets of single-spaced typing and double-sided papers held together in two large three-ring binders. He estimated the transcriptions had taken hundreds of hours to do.

Did I wrestle with that decision? Of course. Was it the right decision, knowing as I did it would mean giving up the prodigious work product of my father? Of course. As I became familiar with the intimate thoughts and writings and details of President Lee's life and ministry among the members and leaders of the Church, I came to a moment when I knew there was no other course to take. It seemed so contradictory to donate the originals and retain the copies. Donating them was an act of supreme consecration on Dad's part.

The contents were indeed "raw materials" from which my father drew in his compilation. Given the context of the times in which Harold B. Lee lived, as with all historical documents, they could easily be misjudged, misconstrued and misinterpreted. That's the risk of retaining them as a family.

I believe no one but Dad could have done that work, and I now consider what he did to be the crowning achievement of a life well-lived. As I read, I could easily discern each of the torturous decisions he had to make as he held the scales of objectivity in his hands in deciding what to include in the record and what to exclude. Every author has his biases, and Dad certainly had his. It may be an imperfect record, but given what I now know about what he had to work with, it was an honest and forthright work.

I trust the leaders of this Church, and I trust the God of heaven whose servants they are. I know they are mere mortals like me. I know they struggle with all the vicissitudes of mortality like all of us. I know they grapple and wrestle mightily to make decisions in the best interests of the Church's members. But I also know they are trustworthy. I am reminded of this precious verse:

". . . put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good - yea, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit. . . I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy; and then shall ye know, or by this shall you know all things whatsoever you desire of me, which are pertaining unto things of righteousness, in faith believing in me that you shall receive." (D&C 11:12-14).

How to Get Converted and Stay Converted

It has been a few weeks since my last post. My lapse in writing can be attributed to a definite malaise that has settled in on my mind. I am reminded this morning that I have been fulfilling the prophecy in D&C 84:54. I had allowed my mind to become darkened because of unbelief and because I had been treating lightly the things I have received.

It started with the memories of Patsy's mother's passing a year ago, then continued as I have observed my own father's slow but steady deterioration as he comes up against his 94th birthday. It's hard to stay positive about the future when you see a visual example of the overall entropy that settles in on the aged ones among us. There is a fatalistic sense of the inevitability of the death of everyone and everything you love that sometimes grips your heart and you forget that life is eternal in those moments of doubt and despair.

Added to that is what's been happening in the world around us - the Paris attacks, and just last week the tragic mass murder in San Bernardino. The latter-day Gadiantons are truly glorying in their bloodbaths around the world, unabated it seems by any who would dare to molest or make afraid. News of death is always in the headlines. It's depressing, isn't it?

We were in the bishop's office last week for tithing settlement. Sadly, the bishop mentioned that some in the Woodland Ward had asked for their names to be removed from the records of the Church because of the Church's recent clarification about the policies for handling cases where same sex couples are raising children in their homes and how those children will be dealt with administratively. His observations were that often members who advocate the "politically correct" social positions are perhaps not (and maybe they were never) truly converted. If they understood true doctrine, he asserted, they would not be caught up in the controversial political winds that swirl around us daily. Politics, it has always seemed to me, is a poor substitute for true doctrine.

Our extended family is not unlike everyone else's we know. There are few families in the Church who will not be touched by the same sex attraction realities that infiltrate the lives of those we love. I have said before, and reiterate here once again that this assault strikes at the very core of the eternal plan for families as laid out specifically and with little or no confusion in the inspired document The Family: A Proclamation To The World. While we continue to nurture, love and patiently teach those we love most who are saddened and confused about the Church position on these matters, we must never weaken our own resolve that God is in His heaven and is the author of the plan of salvation because He loves His children unconditionally. Offering empathy and love to all His children, as He does, is the essence of our attempts to become more like Him.

I know a man who has struggled with all the issues over same sex attraction for a lifetime. He was full of hate. He hated his parents, he hated his wife, he hated practically everyone he knew. I'm certain he must have hated me too at times. His countenance was dark and foreboding. Happiness eluded him. I know all the intimate details of his life because he shared them with me. I have stood by as he has sunk to the depths of despair over this issue, been the subject of Church disciplinary councils through the years, been divorced and remarried, acted out his fantasies and in short "done it all" over the course of his life. In search for happiness outside his temple marriage, however, he never found what he was seeking.

Now retired, he has been reborn after the manner of Alma the younger in answer to the pleas and persistent petitions of his father and those who loved him. I believe him when he tells me based upon his lifetime of "gayness" that homosexuality is a choice. As tortured as he has been, he knows that to be true. I do not know it the way he knows it. I know that is true from a doctrinal perspective. I can only take him at his word as a witness who has lived it. And I love him deeply and honestly for his choice to return, Alma-like, cleansed, purified and wholly committed to living out his remaining days in the bonds of his marriage covenant with his wife and with his God. His countenance has changed. He is full of light and truth. He is reaching for more light every day.

I will not multiply words in this post (as tempting as that is for me), because I have laid out the doctrine repeatedly in these pages.

However, as I thought about my visit with the bishop at tithing settlement and as I have pondered "true conversion" since, I can say without reservation that the antidote for throwing off the malaise of the effects of the things that tend to dampen my enthusiasm for living is the "magic" of daily scripture study.

When I am asked how I came to love the scriptures so much the answer is simple - it was my substitute for pornography. As a young married man, I had to find a "replacement therapy" and for me it was immersing myself in the scriptures on a daily basis.

It began with a fascination about the broad topic of the signs of the times and the prophecies of the last days. The eschatology of other religions also came to bear on my studies. After a trip to the Holy Land many years ago I immersed myself in all things Muslim. I am still deeply saddened over how the radicals of Islam have altered forever what was once a religion of peace, one that valued "the people of the book" (meaning the Bible - Christians and Jews alike), and treated them with respect and tolerance.

Then it shifted to reading the New Testament and the Old Testament in depth as I taught the four-year series in gospel doctrine. I fell in love with the principal author of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul. He became a true hero to me. He helped me understand my Mormonism so much better than any other commentaries I had previously read. And conversely, Joseph Smith's writings helped me understand Paul better too. I have always found a marvelous harmony in Joseph and Paul.

Throughout all my explorations in the scriptures and amassing a library I have now mostly given away except for the treasured volumes I simply had to retain, The Book of Mormon continues to light my path. It is my considered belief that those who struggle most with the Church and with doctrine are not immersing themselves daily in the word of God as found in the standard works published by the Church.

Whatever your challenges may be, try this simple experiment. Take down that dusty volume, The Book of Mormon, from your bookshelf, or ask the Church to send you one for free (scroll down to the bottom of this blog and you will find the link). Then do this: For thirty days set aside a half hour and open the book to any page anywhere inside the covers and read at random. You can always go back later and read it from start to finish, but for the purpose of this exercise just thumb through the pages at random every day for thirty minutes. Don't miss a day. At the end of the thirty days see if your life hasn't been improved in some small way. See if ingesting God's word from those pages doesn't help you with whatever it is that is causing your malaise of spirit.

As I am His witness, I testify that The Book of Mormon is the word of God. It is truly a Second Witness of Jesus Christ. Almost any page will seal that testimony in your heart if you seek to know it in the sincerity of your search for truth. Your conversion will be in direct proportion to the degree of diligence you apply to this simple test. No one I know ever left this Church who was reading The Book of Mormon daily. It's such a simple spiritual antidote.

Dare to get converted, truly converted, and then stay converted. And continue in patience to reach out and love those around you who aren't so sure about that.

Are We Saved By Grace or By Works?

In 1999, I prepared some thoughts about this topic and handed it out to the members of my gospel doctrine class. Sixteen years later, my son Joe is now teaching gospel doctrine, and updated my original writing recently. When I read it again, I decided it was worth sharing with everyone who reads this page:

Saved by Grace or by Works? 
What Paul Taught
Joe Goates
September 27, 2015

I recently spoke with a friend about his sister, who has been struggling with her testimony and lacking hope. She feels that all the effort to live the gospel is not worth it, after all, only a relative few will make the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, and she isn’t living up to what she would need to do to obtain that kingdom anyway. My friend asked me if I had any suggestions on some reading material that could restore her hope in the gospel and help her understand how she can obtain this kingdom, which is greatest of all the gifts of God (D&C 6:13). I gave him some suggestions and I hope these thoughts are also helpful for this good sister, and anyone else who has struggled with the same thoughts of inadequacy and lack of hope.

The World Teaches About Paul

Millions of people throughout time have asked the question, “What do I need to do to be saved?” Preachers in churches everywhere proclaim the answer to that question, and it usually involves something like “accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.” Almost all these Christian persuasions have a common thread in their preaching. Each preacher declares his or her version of what they think the Apostle Paul meant in his New Testament epistles.

Joseph Smith

Paul’s teachings about “grace” and being “born again” are often confusing and difficult to understand for many Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith simply declared, “Being born again comes by the Spirit of God through ordinances.” (see TPJS, p. 162). Lacking a knowledge of the restoration and the ordinances of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, most other Christian evangelists rely heavily upon Paul’s letters to the churches in his day. The missing link in their sermons is that the leaders of the branches of the church to whom Paul wrote (along with their followers) had already received the ordinances of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. That is why Paul rarely speaks of the preparatory ordinances.

Paul never mentions temple marriage and only makes vague references to the three degrees of glory. He focuses instead on the requirements for salvation after the ordinances of salvation have been received from legal administrators who have the authority “to preach the gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof” (Fifth Article of Faith). Paul presumes his readers already know about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, the priesthood and the temple.

What We Think We Believe

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who have possession of the fullness of the gospel, the priesthood and all its ordinances (including temple ordinances) are often unsure about their doctrinal position on salvation by grace and being born again.

Some Mormons, especially those raised in the Church think that salvation means only resurrection, a free gift, but that exaltation must be earned by performing good works and by keeping all the commandments. I believe we can trace this common belief back to the legacy of our Pioneer ancestry.

The notion of earning our own way is a cultural bias rooted in the fabric of Mormon history. Nobody gave our ancestors anything. His neighbors beat my great-great-great grandfather James Munns nearly to death the night before he left his hometown of Orwell in Cambridgeshire, England, to sail to America with the Mormons. He went to his grave in Lehi, Utah, bent over and scarred from the wounds he suffered that night for his faith.

We are the descendants of people who were chiseled out of the rock of adversity when they were forced to leave their homes in New York, Kirtland, Jackson County, and then Nauvoo. They eventually conquered the desert wilderness of the Utah territory. They earned everything they got.

This attitude of having to earn our stripes and prove ourselves before God often carries over when it comes to our view on salvation. I have heard many people say, “I’m just not good enough to be a Mormon.”  They end up staying outside the doors because they have an incorrect view of how salvation really works. Thinking you have to “prove yourself” to God is like cancer patients who feel they must cure themselves of the disease before they seek medical attention.

Church programs tend to perpetuate the perfection myth. The problem is that measuring the relative behavior of disciples of Christ and comparing their performance to each other seem completely contrary to the gospel. Perfection presumes that some are better than others, when in reality, all disciples of Christ are, by definition, sinners and fallen beings (Romans 3:23). If salvation was all about what you could accomplish on your own, then why would there be a need to come to Christ?

What is Grace?

If we immerse ourselves in the teaching of the prophets of The Book of Mormon there will come an assurance that we are truly saved by grace, and not by our “good works.” Grace and being born again are topics we should speak more freely of in the Church. (See Mosiah 27: 24-26; Alma 7:14; John 3: 1-5).

On Resurrection Morning

Bible Dictionary’s Definition of Grace:

"It is through the grace of the Lord Jesus, made possible by His atoning sacrifice, that mankind will be raised in immortality, every person receiving his body from the grave in a condition of everlasting life. It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts.

"Divine grace is needed by every soul in consequence of the Fall of Adam and also because of man’s weaknesses and shortcomings. However, grace cannot suffice without total effort on the part of the recipient. Hence the explanation, 'It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.' (2 Ne. 25:23). It is truly the grace of Jesus Christ that makes salvation possible."

Because of Paul and Alma, we know that grace is not a gift that we must qualify for by virtue of righteousness initially, but it is also true that we may grow from “grace to grace” as we obtain “grace for grace.” (See D&C 93:1-20). It is not something you can earn on your own. Grace comes as a gift from God and is showered in doses over all his creations without discrimination.

No one summarizes the idea of what grace is better than Nephi:

"Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves -- to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life.
"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.
"Wherefore, may God raise you from death by the power of the resurrection, and also from everlasting death by the power of the atonement, that ye may be received into the eternal kingdom of God, that ye may praise him through grace divine. (2 Nephi 10: 23-25).

So, What are “Good Works?”

Simply put, the “good works” are part of the covenant relationship we enter into as members of the Church. We are to do the works of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This faith leads us to truly repent of our sins. Then we can accept the ordinances of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, the laying on of the hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. In time we receive priesthood ordinations and temple covenants. Enduring to the end of mortal life in those principles and ordinances to the best of our ability.

Those good works built on symbolic covenants are all inspired by obedience to the power of God and his Spirit in us. They are acts of grace growing out of the goodness of God within us. Jesus taught that only God was “good” (Mark 10:18). So did Paul. (Romans 3:10-12). Eternal life is attainable only because of our faith in Christ’s atonement. We earn nothing as fallen beings, because any good in us comes from God. The Holy Ghost either inspires our good works, or our works are merely the works of men and they perish. (3 Nephi 27:10-12). We love and serve others as He loves and serves us — not in an effort to deserve grace, but to accept it and offer it to others as freely as it is offered to us.

Do I Have to Keep the Commandments?

You will not find one latter-day Prophet who stood at the head of this Church in this dispensation who has not admonished the saints to keep the commandments of God.  But we all should realize that the ideal is never achieved in perfection in this life. The long list of commandments and outward ordinances is not unlike the “preparatory gospel” of the Law of Moses, designed to give Israel a “type and shadow” of the spiritual blessings they would ultimately attain through the atonement of Christ. The Law of Moses was never designed to produce salvation (see Mosiah 13: 30-31; 16: 14-15; 2 Nephi 2: 4-7; Romans 3: 20-24), but as sin in the world escalates we zealously admonish one another that not one must be lost. We learn to measure performance and compare relative compliance. We must remember to feed the sheep and not be satisfied with merely counting them. A “real” Mormon, who has been converted from the inside out, may not be praised by man, but he will be praised of God. (See Romans 2: 25-29).

Does Grace or Works Save Us?

The answer is “yes.” When we commit sin and we die a spiritual death we separate ourselves from the companionship of and constant influence of our Heavenly Father’s love and Spirit. When we repent of our sins and come unto Christ, we are rescued and become new creatures. This matter of being saved from sin and being rescued by the Redeemer, is not a one-time confession with our lips only. It takes a lifetime of persistent faith to achieve – but it must be the right “good works” that we do to “retain a remission of our sins” (see Mosiah 4). The works required for salvation are simply accepting, with a pure heart, the covenants and ordinances that give us access to Christ’s atonement and His grace that changes us.

“And of tenets thou shalt not talk, but thou shalt declare repentance and faith on the Savior, and remission of sins by baptism, and by fire, yea, even the Holy Ghost.
“Behold, this is a great and the last commandment which I shall give unto you concerning this matter; for this shall suffice for thy daily walk, even unto the end of thy life.” (D&C 19:31-32).

"And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved." (Omni 1:26).

"And again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing....
"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.
"And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot." (Moroni 10: 30, 32-32).

Sometimes this matter of being saved by grace takes a lifetime of learning and a quiet, but persistent overcoming of temptations and habits. We recognize our own feeble efforts will meet with frustration and failure week by week.  That is why we partake of the emblems of Christ’s atonement – the bread and water — each week in the sacramental covenant. The grace of God is the enabling power that makes possible our continued attempts to do better in the works of righteousness as we grow from “grace to grace.” We truly receive more and more as we give more and more grace. Salvation and exaltation is really that simple.