On the front page of The Boulder Daily Camera a story appeared today focusing on my faith. (You need to register for access to the whole article)
I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the article did a wonderful job of outlining the basics of our faith, and gave a great forum for a couple of us to defend our faith.
The Camera Editor used several quotes from a two hour interview I did a couple weeks ago with Lisa Marshall.
Here are some examples from the article: (My quotes are in bold type)
“Only those who meet certain requirements — such as providing proof they have given their 10 percent tithing and vowing that they abstain from drugs and alcohol — can gain access to the temples where weddings, or “sealings,” take place. Non-Mormons cannot enter the temple at all, meaning in-laws, and non-Mormon friends and family often are excluded from the temple ceremony when loved ones get married. When Gordon’s own son recently got married to a convert whose parents are not Mormon, they had to wait outside.
“Anybody can go in as long as they qualify,” Gordon stresses. “It’s basically just about living a good, clean life.”
Even among Mormons, only about 50 percent have temple access.
Jenny Hatch is among them.
“This is one of the most prized possessions I have,” says Hatch, 35, pulling her laminated temple-access card from her purse. “Before they let you in, they want to know that you are convicted in your heart.”
At the modest two-bedroom condominium in Louisville where Jenny and her husband Paul live with their five children, ages 3 to 17, each day begins and ends with the children taking turns reading from thick, leather-bound scripture. Monday nights are reserved for Family Home Evening, where the kids gather around the kitchen table for faith-based games, lessons and songs. Saturdays are spent baking food for the coming week from scratch — in keeping with the Mormon doctrine of self-sufficiency — and Sundays, from 10 a.m. to noon, are spent in church where members (not paid ministers) are expected to take turns delivering the sermon.
Once a month, Jenny and Paul travel to the Mormon temple in Denver, where they perform “proxy-work” — standing in as man and wife — for church members’ dead ancestors who were never properly “sealed,” or married in the temple. Without that, according to church doctrine, they may not be reunited in heaven. The same is done for dead family members of LDS faithful who were never baptized.
“It is the great equalizer for families who came on this earth when the gospel was not there yet,” Hatch says. “It is very sweet work.””
“Higher powers
Local Mormons stress that, despite many assumptions to the contrary, they are indeed Christians. But many of their beliefs stand apart from even the most conservative denominations.
The faith dates back to 1820, when Joseph Smith, then 14, was in his upstate New York home praying when, according to the founding story, he was visited by the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. They told him not to choose any faith, but rather, to discover his own. Three years later, according to Mormon scripture, an angel named Moroni returned to Smith and told him of an ancient record written on gold plates and buried in a nearby hill. Those plates, which told of an ancient race of Israelites who had made their way to North America, were ultimately translated into what we know now as the Book of Mormon.
As with any religion, its beliefs are vast and complex. But at its core, the church believes itself to be the “restored,” living church of Jesus Christ. Smith is believed to have been just the first of many prophets who, to this day, direct the church through divine revelations.
“We believe there is a living prophet today — not only does the prophet receive revelation, but each of us do,” says Gordon.
And in the afterlife, some humans actually will become Gods.
“We believe that we can become like our Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father — that we can become Gods,” Hatch says. “That is seen as presumptuous in some people’s minds.””
“When asked about polygamy, many local Mormons vigorously defend the practice in the past as a fact of life across religions throughout Biblical times. “It is not a new concept we invented,” Bishop Stan Gordon says.
It served its purpose at the time, they say, providing shelter and support for women and children, and driving up the Mormon population at a time when it was threatened. But it has been condemned by the church since 1890, they stress, and those practicing it today will be excommunicated.
Nonetheless, some say that if divine prophecy called on Mormons to take up the practice again — perhaps if there were a war and there were few men left at home — they would not reject the notion outright.
“I personally believe polygamy is about taking care of women and children,” Jenny Hatch says. “It is more about providing for families than anything else.””
I think Lisa did an excellent job on the article, and although she balanced it with “Anti-Mormon views”, which does tend to annoy those of us who are faithful LDS, I understand why she felt the need to balance her article, and was not offended by those views being in the paper.
Jenny Hatch