Mormon Church<\/a> is to be condemned because it cruelly threatens people that their marriages and families will be broken up at death if they don\u2019t become Latter-day Saints, fork over at least ten percent of their incomes for the enriching of the Brethren, and get themselves sealed in a temple owned and operated by LD$ Inc.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The complaint seems to presume that every other church teaches and has always taught that families will be together forever without<\/em> temple sealings, \u00a0and that it\u2019s a heartless Mormon innovation to come along and say that that\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
But traditional Christianity has long<\/em> taught that marriage and family relationships will be terminated at the grave.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Read Dante\u2019s \u201cDivina Commedia,\u201d for example, to get a glimpse of historic Christian orthodoxy on this matter: \u00a0To the best of my recollection \u2014 and I\u2019ve read it several times, though not, now, for at least a couple of years \u2014 there isn\u2019t a single intact married couple or family group anywhere in that great, long compendium of medieval Catholic doctrine and commentary. \u00a0Not in the Inferno<\/em>. \u00a0Not in the Purgatorio<\/em>. \u00a0And not even in the Paradiso<\/em>. \u00a0Nowhere. \u00a0Everybody in it, whether damned or saved or in between, is a lone individual.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a sampling of the relevant phrases from mainstream Christian wedding services:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cas long as you both shall live\u201d (Episcopal, Methodist)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cso long as you both shall live\u201d \u00a0(Unitarian)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cuntil we are parted by death\u201d \u00a0(Episcopal, Methodist)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cas long as we both shall live\u201d \u00a0(Presbyterian)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cso long as we both shall live\u201d \u00a0(Quaker)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cuntil death parts us\u201d \u00a0(Lutheran)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cas long as we live\u201d \u00a0(Lutheran)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cuntil death do us part\u201d \u00a0(Catholic, Eastern Orthodox)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201ctill death us do part\u201d \u00a0(Anglican [Book of Common Prayer])<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201call the days of my life\u201d \u00a0(Catholic)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
And, needless to say, atheism doesn\u2019t exactly promise an eternal companionship for spouses and families, either.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
This weird objection, that, somehow, we Mormons have come along and threatened people with divorce in the next life unless they surrender to us, strikes me as rather like a situation in which someone is drowning in a swiftly moving river. \u00a0A huge waterfall looms. \u00a0A benevolent onlooker grabs a life preserver and throws it out to the drowning person, who shows no interest in it whatever. \u00a0The hopeful rescuer\u00a0reels it in and tosses it out again. \u00a0However, the drowning person, \u00a0rapidly moving toward the roaring cataract, ignores it a second time. \u00a0Increasingly worried, the would-be benefactor runs along the river bank, pulls the life preserver in a third time, and throws it out once more to the drowning person. \u00a0\u201cGrab it!\u201d he admonishes. \u00a0\u201cIf you don\u2019t take hold of it, you\u2019re going to die!\u201d \u00a0\u201cHow immoral of you!\u201d responds the soon-to-be-dead person in the river. \u00a0\u201cNow you\u2019re threatening me with death unless\u00a0I accept your precious little flotation device!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Two items for your already-bulging \u201cThe Church doesn\u2019t care about non-Mormons and it\u2019s a malign, harmful influence in the world\u201d file: \u00a0 \u201cFaith Key to Rebounding from Refugee Status, Apostle Says\u201d \u00a0 \u201cWhile Irma raged, 11,000 Mormon volunteers worked to save Texas homes\u201d \u00a0 As the late great Christopher Hitchens loved to point […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>