The following first appeared on Public Square Magazine.
The recent news on support for the Respect for Marriage Act from church headquarters seems to be throwing people for a loop on both sides of the political spectrum. As the Church’s public statement is being misunderstood by both sides, we need to be able to make sense of the cultural context and what this statement does and does not mean.
The move seems to be influencing a bit of a faith crisis challenge for those with traditionalist stances. It’s also being misinterpreted as a sign of false hope from progressives that the Church’s doctrines are headed toward changes. Neither should be the interpretation. Having surveyed the coverage, the clickbait headlines aren’t necessarily accurate on this issue with the Church, and they certainly remove the important context of the Church’s intentions to retain its doctrine on marriage. Focusing on why this support has been offered, I highlight the cultural shift that has left the Church a smaller number of allies and of the growing weight of private interests that are dedicated to dismissing religious freedom and catching the Church in legal battles that can be avoided with the passage of this act.
One wish seems to be to take Abinadi’s approach to bulldoze into the city, declare that those in government are wrong, and allow the chips to fall as they will because it’s the brave thing to do. This cost Abinadi his life, but that isn’t necessary in these circumstances. There are other options that leaders at church headquarters have wisely taken. For years church leaders have telegraphed their support for bills like this one that protect differing interests but protect them nonetheless. Further, Jesus Christ is a God of negotiation in certain circumstances, or at least of picking His battles. When asked to dismiss Caesar’s power, He deflected the opportunity and used a coin with Caesar’s image to acknowledge Caesar’s then-power. When asked to do so again, He used the parable of the wicked husbandmen to identify his stalkers’ intentions to get Him into legal trouble. Finally, when on trial, He went quiet and refused to answer. Thus, at some moments, Jesus Christ responds assertively, and at other times He negotiates or lets the other party have their way. God has to navigate around massive shifts in human behavior, such as altering His agreements with Adam and Eve and His entertaining Abraham’s negotiations about the number of righteous people left in a city. This is where the Church is in 2022.
Last year a Gallup poll showed a whopping 70% of Americans support gay marriage. I graduated from high school 25 years ago, in 1997. A similar poll that same year showed a support of 30% for gay marriage. What was a majority perspective is now a minority and is shrinking. Coinciding with these cultural shifts, three years ago, the Pew Research Center described the results of a ten-year study showing the worldwide growth of governmental regulation of religious freedom, as well as the growing social hostility toward religion. In various ways, religion is being marginalized. This is evident in the growth of aggressive interest groups with their crosshairs on freedom of conscience. The Freedom from Religion Foundation is continually working to subsume religious interests, especially in the effort to pin religion against science.
Popular rhetors like Richard Dawkins decontextualize religion in the performance of witty, quick-click rants. And two months ago, the Pew Research Center also released data projecting the sharp decline in religion that is forthcoming, and with a possible zero population growth of religious affiliation in the coming decades—this means as the religious population dies, so too does that tradition if it isn’t adopted by younger generations. This has everything to do with the comforts of technology that lead to our collectively relaxed sense of conscience or of the ending of a ‘religious buffering of trauma/tragedy’—but that’s a different topic. The point here is to identify the circumstances we are in. In 25 years, our society has flipped the coin on its head—and Caesar’s new face on that coin isn’t showing a face interested in religious protections, generally. Scripture has projected this result many times, along with a seemingly endless number of General Conference predictions of our deteriorating current and future circumstances.
At the same time, the number of annual lawsuits filed regarding sexuality and identity against freedom of conscience has more than doubled since 2013. This week the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments on whether freedom of conscience can be protected in the public sector, with the state of Colorado and the U.S. Court of Appeals having already denied that sense of conscience to a web design artist who wishes to use her craft to help others express religious convictions. Our culture is different, drastically different.
While I do not want anyone to be marginalized, I also don’t want conscience to be governmentally regulated. But, the United States, and the world, now have a new morality that is a legal issue. Churches have a ‘deer in the headlights’ look in realizing what has happened in only 25 years. While once a cultural staple, religion is taken less seriously, and formal efforts to further subsume it are growing.
So what is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to do? One option, again, is to bulldoze through tactics of direct confrontation. However much we love to read about this kind of response in sacred writ, it’s understandable why inspired leaders are being led to conclude that can’t and shouldn’t happen in a technologized and largely civil society. Church members aren’t being tarred and feathered in the streets, nor stoned to death. There are other options in our ongoing civil society. Remember, Caesar’s inscription is now blatantly observable in American laws.
Looking to ancient precedent, Christ simply conceded to Caesar’s legal swagger, as He had His own ministering to do instead of turning His focus into a political fight. As long as He was allowed to preach and heal, which eventually ended, He was okay with the powerful being powerful. So, does religion revolt and demand control, or ask in a more humble, less dramatic way to be included in the monolithic effort of keeping everyone’s interests protected? If we’re smart, the latter path is the right choice.
Here is what is at stake: the crowning religious experience for members of my faith is in making “temple covenants,” where we agree to dedicate our lives to Jesus Christ in what is called the “endowment,” followed by another final covenant, where we marry someone of the opposite sex and commit to a shared a life together focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ. In scripture, Jesus is constantly referred to as “the bridegroom” for the Church. In our marriage ceremonies, men and women take on the task of having children and dedicating their time to serve in the Church that is based on organized charitable efforts, youth programs, and leadership in worship. Governmental laws could, without legal assurance of this conscience-focus on the eternal union and duality of men and women that is the absolute crowning part of the temple, be compromised in the coming years. While we are far away from, and perhaps never will face, what Russian churches endured under the Russian state’s organized League of the Militant Godless—the legal destruction of over 30,000 churches and only allowing church services to be held under the supervision of government agents, our temple covenants are what is needing to be safeguarded amidst these opportunities for civil deliberation.
So we must, as the prophet Moroni suggested, “awake” to the “situation” we are in. The United States will never go back to the 1990s social priorities, ever. Those days are gone. And this cultural change was telegraphed in the Church’s 1995 Proclamation on the Family. The Church is now situated more like Esther in the delicate situation she faced in approaching the king’s court and hoping not to be executed, and like Daniel, who did face execution due to an opportunistic legal technicality that was intentionally created to limit his religious freedom. These are days of litigation, law lobbying, and needing to safeguard what we hold most sacred—our crowning covenants.
In the digital world’s dealing of cards, the Church no longer has a winning hand when it comes to public opinion or legal leverage. Pay close attention to President Nelson. He’s been telling us what is happening and what is coming with his frequent description of “In the coming days …,” even emphasizing “time is running out.” With sensitivity toward those who are our friends and allies of faith, when it comes to the LGBT+ community, a treaty is more important than a war. Let Caesar have his coin. That inscribed coin was crafted years ago and formalized by the federal government over a decade ago. The best we can do is realize our new situation and know, as stated in the letter from church leadership, that the Church’s perspectives on our eternal identities haven’t changed. Let’s realize that this is about legal protections for what will soon be 300 operating temples that will marry men and women together forever. The First Presidency is laboring to protect that freedom.
Doc FullerDecember 1, 2022
My personal research shows that Americans will cohabit without marriage at the rate of over 70%, sometime during their lifetimes. Google it yourself! While 'Homosexuality' is at a rate of no more than 2-3% max. Do you get my obvious point? Please focus on the 70% and not on the 3%. Society is not threatened or endangered in its morality by the 3%! It's a smoke screen by the adversary. Far too many waste 100% of their efforts worrying about the 3%, instead of the real threat of 70% = playing right into the plans and schemes of Satan. We don't see the real threats until it's too late.
BillDecember 1, 2022
In the year 2000, our beloved prophet Gordon B. Hinckley wrote a wonderful book entitled “Standing for Something”. In its epilogue entitled “The Loneliness of Moral Leadership” President Hinckley stated: What we desperately need today on all fronts—in our homes and communities, in schoolrooms and boardrooms, and certainly throughout society at large—are leaders, men and women who are willing to stand for something. We need people who are honest; who are willing to stand up for decency, truth, integrity, morality, and law and order; who respond to their consciences even when it is unpopular to do so—perhaps especially when it is unpopular to do so. That is the job of the leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Its not to be politically correct. It is to speak eternal truth, to stand up for the gospel of Jesus Christ, no matter the cost. That is important not only so the world knows where we as a Church stand, but also so that the people of the Church know where their leaders stand. On November 15, 2022 the Church announced its support for the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act”. In that announcement the Church reiterated that “The doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints related to marriage between a man and a woman is well known and will remain unchanged,” while also stating that the Act “includes appropriate religious freedom protections while respecting the law and preserving the rights of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.” Senator Mike Lee of Utah , an attorney and constitutional scholar, indicated that those religious liberty protections touted by the Church “can only be described as severely anemic." His proposed amendment to shore up those religious liberty protections were never taken into consideration before the Senate passed the bill. For more information on the problems with this Act see and excellent article by Roger Severino on the Heritage Foundations website entitled “Fact-Checking 7 Claims by Defenders of Democrats' Same-Sex Marriage Bill”. I note in the final part of the Family Proclamation, “We CALL UPON responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.” Apparently, not only does the Church no longer call upon officers of government to protect the family, they are no longer willing to do it themselves. In my opinion, the Church should have stood with its convictions and denounced the measure. It would have been a strong and welcome message to the world, our other religious allies and to Church members that we stand for the principals and doctrines outlined in the Family Proclamation. I note that this approach may, to some, seem like Abinadi bulldozing into the city. However, as shown in Mosiah 12:1, the Lord commanded Abinadi to go into the city and to prophesy, and that Abinadi went into the city in disguise, that they knew him not. No bulldozer there. But when he was captured and brought before King Noah, he then boldly taught and testified. He was Standing for Something. Sometimes you do have to stand up and let the chips fall where they may, then trust upon the Lord to see His eternal purposes fulfilled.