The Gospel According to Jeffrey

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe in the authority and power of the Priesthood. However, unlike many religious traditions, we do not understand the Priesthood to be an organization or even a group of religious leaders, but rather a power. A page on Mormon.org entitled What Is the Priesthood?  repeats the definition most often heard in Church meetings and lesson manuals: “The Priesthood,” it writes, “is the authority to act in God’s name.” Whereas some religions view priesthood like an electric company, we view it as the actual electricity; it exists independently of its holders, ready to be called upon by all those who are authorized to do so. So my question is: who, pray tell, is so authorized? It’s an interesting question, to say the least, and one that I don’t think has been particularly explored among Latter-day Saints. I know, for example, that I am authorized to perform certain ordinances because I am an elder in the Church. I can ...

A couple of days ago, I posted a response to Pastor Wil’s Top Ten Questions for “Mormons”. As long-time readers know, I have blogged about dissenting opinions in the past. What makes this time different is that the dissenting author has actually seen fit to respond. Pastor Wil, if you’re reading, I greatly appreciate this courtesy. Much as I am apparently “the only member of the [C]hurch [of Jesus Christ] who has answered all the questions,” so you, Pastor Wil, are perhaps the only non–Latter-day Saint who has responded to a relevant blog post. You thus have my gratitude, as well. Now, normally when someone comments on my blog and I need to respond, I will do so in the same venue as the initial response, i.e. in the comments section. The problem with that method, however, is that it becomes quite unwieldy when a response requires more than a paragraph or two. In this case, I feel that Pastor Wil’s comment does indeed necessitate a more lengthy response, so I hope my other readers wi...

For the last few weeks, a man who goes by the name of “PastorWil” has been tweeting about the Church of Jesus Christ and so-called “Mormonism.” Today, he tweeted a link to a recent blog post entitled My Top Ten Questions For Mormons . As a so-called “Mormon” myself, I will endeavor to respond to each of his top ten questions. Here we go! :-) 1. Do you believe the Bible has been corrupted? Of course I do. I suspect you do, too. There are literally thousands of Bible translations. No two are exactly alike, and they often contradict each other. Do you believe that the Inspired Version of the Bible (used by the Community of Christ) and the New World Translation (used by Jehovah’s Witnesses) are both 100% accurate? If not, then you, too, believe that the Bible has been corrupted. 2. If the Bible is corrupted, then why does the LDS church still use the King James and not the Joseph Smith Translation? This is actually a trick question. The Church does use the Joseph Smith Translation...

It’s time again for everyone’s favorite game show, Respond to Michael ! Seriously, though, I want to begin this entry by explaining that I really do respect Michael Crook. We’ve disagreed before , and I’m sure we will again. However, the guy’s got a good head on his shoulders and makes a lot of good points. My issue is generally not with his positions so much as the abrasion with which they tend to be presented. That being said, Michael’s latest post, entitled No Victims They , has made a rather interesting claim: that homosexuality cannot be innate because “our Heavenly Father would force such a sick, foul, and obscene desire on any of his children.” While I recognize that Brother Crook is mostly paraphrasing and expanding upon President Boyd K. Packer ’s instructions regarding pornography in the Church’s 180th Semiannual General Conference (which I commented on , at the time), I think he’s taking things a little farther than even President Packer intended. So for th...

Following my August 26 post regarding Michael Crook and Mitch Mayne, I received a question in the comments. Strangely, I was not notified of its existence until just now, so I am now endeavoring to respond. Hopefully the author won’t be too unhappy with me. The question was as follows: Jeff, I appreciate that you've thought about the situation critically. That's awesome. That got me on a deep-think track about a few subtle differences between sexual orientation and the inclinations to which you've referred (e.g., to steal a Twix bar). You've basically asserted that all inclinations are basically on the same playing field. What happens, though, when God says to one person "You can act on this inclination" then turns to another person and says "I'm sorry, you can't act on this inclination"? That's how I view sexual orientation in the LDS Church: God has told straight Mormons, Date! Hold hands! Kiss! Develop these powerful urges withi...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) When I started at Indiana University in Fall Semester 1992, there was not yet a Young Single Adult branch at the school. However, our numbers were such that the local Institute of Religion was always bustling, and with the subsequent assignation of all local YSAs to the Bloomington 2nd Ward, our about 50 active members were a very strong, tight-knit group. Keith, on the other hand, had a less faith-promoting experience at Ricks. While one would naturally assume a religious school to be a positive environment, quite the opposite is often true: less-committed individuals will often attend at their parents’ behest, and since Church activity remains part of the culture, there are plenty of bad examples among even fully active Church members. As it happened, Keith wound up randomly assigned to an apartment with three less-than-exemplary roommates, which took quite a toll on his faith. Undeterred, Keith pressed on and attempted to serve a f...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) The day after our baptism, Keith and I had a great day at Church. Everyone was so excited for us, and our bishop took me aside and shared some counsel that I can only describe as a prophecy. (I won’t share the details, but suffice to say, it has been partially fulfilled and in process of being completely fulfilled.) Afterwards, though, is when the real excitement started. After leaving Church, we headed back to Keith’s house. While Keith ran up to his room to change his clothes, his grandfather took me outside to the front porch for a little talk. Once there, he informed me that I was no longer welcome in their home and that I shouldn’t come back in. I stood there on the steps for a few minutes until Keith came out and asked me what was going on. I’ll never forget the look on his face as he quickly headed back in, calling, “Grandpa!” While I continued to stand on the porch, Keith got to fully witness a very loud argument, which I only...

Today marks the 20th anniversary of my baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ. For the month of August, I have been publishing my conversion story serially. For those who have been reading along, thank you. For those who helped the story happen in the first place, thank you even more. And for those who haven’t read it yet (or simply want to do so, again), here’s a link back to the beginning . Thanks again for reading, and God bless! “All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and witness before the church that they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end, and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church” (D.&C. 20:37). On the night of 31 August 1991, at 7:00 p.m., Keith and I h...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.… [And] when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.” (Acts 8:5,12). On the afternoon of Saturday, August 17—the same day I had my meeting with Pastor Andy —the missionaries came back to give Keith and me the third discussion. Again we bought cookies; again they failed to eat many. It quickly became the joke that we were buying them for ourselves. On Thursday, August 22, the missionaries returned to give us the fourth discussion. The plan was to complete the discussion that night, return to give us the fifth discussion on Saturday the 24th, and finish up with the sixth on Monday the 26th. Unfortunately, we got off on so many tangents that our Thursday appointment took over five hours. The missionaries had to get home for curfew (and probably still missed ...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “[M]eddle not with any man for his religion … permit every man to enjoy his religion unmolested” (President Joseph Smith, Jr., Times and Seasons, 15 Aug 1844). By now, Keith’s and my parents had each figured out that we were planning to become “Mormons,” which sent them running to their respective ministers—who, by a strange coincidence, were the same person. (Both our families were less active in the same church, but since neither of us was there regularly, our acquaintance was in no way connected to our membership therein.) Like many Protestant sects, the primary draw to my parents’ church is the pastor who heads it. At the time, this was Pastor Andy , a truly amazing man of God whom I continue to greatly respect. Andy was an old friend of my grandfather’s, so my parents particularly trusted him. It was therefore particularly shocking to them when, upon telling him that their son was about to become a “Mormon,” he responded with somet...

For those of you who have been following my serialized conversion story , I apologize for the interjection. However, there is an issue floating around the internet that I felt I must weigh in on, while the opportunity still presents itself. The issue is that of two Latter-day Saints, Brother Mitch Mayne and Brother Michael Crook. Brother Mayne, for those who haven’t heard, is an openly gay man who has supposedly been sustained as the executive secretary (his web site erroneously states “a member of the Bishopric”) in his San-Francisco-Bay-Area ward. This is, of course, not a problem, if Brother Mayne be committed to living the gospel (a willingness which I do not feel at liberty to judge). What is a problem, however, is that according to Brother Mayne’s web site , he is “open to a relationship if fate brings that my way,” and “not committing to a lifetime of celibacy.” If this “relationship” he speaks of be an indication of continued homosexuality, it certainly sounds like he has...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path” (Psalm 27:11). The next morning, we got up in plenty of time to make the 25-minute drive to Church. Keith picked me up at about 9:15 and we headed out to the Fardale Ward building , where Church would begin at 10:00 AM. Unfortunately, the missionaries’ directions were horrendous. We did eventually find the Church hidden amongst some trees, down a side road, and wandered into the chapel at about 10:35. The missionaries had just about given up on us, but totally lit up when we walked in the door. After Sacrament Meeting, the missionaries apologized profusely and introduced us to a few people, including the bishop and the priests quorum advisor (who was probably also the Young Men’s President, but I don’t know for sure). We also ran into Mr. Bennett, who had been my homeroom teacher and Keith’s math teacher, the preceding school year. We hadn’t had any idea he was a member of the Chur...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him” (Acts 8:36-38). The rest of the way home from the shore, Keith and I discussed what we wanted to do about this whole Church thing. Turns out we both knew we needed (and wanted) to be baptized, so the decision was pretty easy to make. On Saturday, we bought a box of cookies for the missionaries, who showed up for the scheduled appointment at 5:00. (They, of course, only ate one or two apiece, probably being concerned about their weight; if it had been elders, there wouldn’t have been any left.) After we said our hellos and ever...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Matt. 21:21-22). After the missionaries left, Keith and I retired to my bedroom to figure out what we wanted to bring to the shore and start packing. As we were doing so, I asked him how much money he had for the trip, and was rather shocked by his response: “I don’t have any money. I thought you had the money for the trip!” “I don’t have any money,” I responded. “You know I got fired from my job, a couple months ago!” “Well, I don’t have any money either,”  he told me. “You know I quit my job, a couple months ago!” So we did the only thing a couple of teenage kids with no money could do: we ...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “[I]f it so be that you should … bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!” (D.&C. 18:15). It was at this point—after a dozen calls to my private line—that my parents’ phone rang for the first time since the missionaries had arrived. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I wouldn’t have to answer that one, but it turned out that this one was for me, too. For some reason, Keith had called the other line—the only call I took, that evening, that didn’t require me to leave the room. He asked what I was doing; I told him that the missionaries were over and invited him to join us. He was there in less than ten minutes (including a seven-minute drive across town), and the missionaries were elated to have someone with whom they could actually place the copies of The Book of Mormon and Gospel Principles that they had originally earmarked for me. We got off on more tangents than I car...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Satan seeketh to turn their hearts away from the truth, that they become blinded and understand not the things which are prepared for them” (Doctrine & Covenants 78:10). Sister Johanson and Sister Fairbanks had, as mentioned previously, wanted to find me for several weeks. When they finally came to the door, that night, I was ecstatic. My mother asked who was there and, while she was willing to let us meet downstairs, in the family room, she insisted that I clean up first. I sent them out to sit on the covered portion of the deck for about fifteen minutes while I cleaned. When I finally got it straightened up enough to bring them downstairs, we started talking about a book they had brought for me— The Book of Mormon . I replied that I already had one and ran upstairs to get it. When I got back, they asked me if I’d read any of it, and I responded that I had read up to “ Mo-SEE-uh ” and was really enjoying it. (They probably correct...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “And it came to pass that when Moses had said these words, behold Satan came tempting him, saying: Moses, son of man, worship me. And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is thy glory, that I should worship thee?” (Moses 1:12-13) On Saturday, August 2, Keith had borrowed his sister’s boyfriend, C.J.’s Ouija board and brought it over to my place. We went up into my old treehouse (actually a clubhouse on stilts, near a tree, but I digress…) and started asking questions. After a few minutes, the pointer started to move and we were in contact with a spirit that claimed to be my grandmother, who had passed away just shy of a year earlier. The spirit answered several personal questions—how much did Anna weigh (it gave the same answer that was on her driver’s license, which I had never seen), what was my I.Q. (it came up the same ...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it— Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven— These should then be attended to with great earnestness” (D.&C. 123:12). Sisters Johanson and Fairbanks continued preached the Gospel as best they could, keeping hope in the back of their minds that some day, they’d stumble across someone that could tell them where Roland Road was located. At Zone Conference in July, the mission president asked all the missionaries to participate in a mission-wide fast. On August 1, 1991, they would all fast, en masse, that they would be led to those “who are only kept from the truth becaus...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Jesus … saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee” (Matt. 5:19). I got home on Thursday, July 18, and basically crashed for the rest of the day (and night). On Friday, my best friend, Keith (who had lent me the money to buy the plane ticket) and I got together so I could tell him all about my time with Anna. I didn’t talk too much about the religious aspect (he already knew I was kinda interested), but we had such a great time hanging out that when it got pretty late, I called my parents and asked if I could spend the night. Funny thing is, despite my having been gone for a week and a half, they said yes. Funnier still, they said yes again when I called, the next night, and asked if I could spend the night at Keith’s place, again! As guys often do, we stayed up quite late, both nights. At about 3:00 Sunday morning (the second night I was there), t...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “And she shall be brought down, and shall speak out of the ground, and her speech shall be low out of the dust; and her voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and her speech shall whisper out of the dust” (Isaiah 29:4). About this time, I was visiting Anna in Indiana. We’d finally convinced her parents to let me come out there and visit, and the first night I was there, she and I sat on her bed as she gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon and the investigators’ Sunday School manual, Gospel Principles . I still remember the first words out of my mouth as I opened the Book of Mormon: “Who’s this ‘ Neffy ’ dude?” After she explained to me that it was actually “Nee-fi” (and that the other dude’s name wasn’t pronounced “ mo-ROW-nee ”), we read a little and I totally felt the Spirit. The next eleven days were among the best I could remember, but one of the highlights was definitely when I went to Church w...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “A slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again” (Prov. 19:24). So here the story breaks into two sections: the story of me and the one I learned much later, that of the aforementioned reference. As it turns out, the missionaries who were over for dinner were in a different zone than the missionaries serving in my area, and for some reason, they couldn’t just call it in to the mission home. At the next zone conference, it was passed along to the assistants to the mission president, who in turn passed it along to the missionaries in my area. …who sat on it for almost a month. You see, before the First Presidency “raised the bar” on missionaries, there were some real losers out in the field. (I’m sure there still are, but probably not as many.) The senior companion among the missionaries in my home ward had been out for 17¼ months, and as far as she was concerned, her mission was ove...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “And the presence of God withdrew from Moses, that his glory was not upon Moses; and Moses was left unto himself. And as he was left unto himself, he fell unto the earth. And it came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man; and he said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed” (Moses 1:9-10). Praying for the first time is an interesting experience, especially when, like me, you haven’t received any guidance. “God?” I began. “I don’t know if you’re there.” (long pause) “And if you are there, I don’t know if you’re listening.” (long pause) “And if you are listening, I don’t know if you care.” (long pause) “But I’m sorry.” I ran down every sinful thing I could think of in my entire life, begging Heavenly Father for forgiveness, and when I finally got done, finished up with “…and if there’s anything else that I’ve...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Open your mouths and they shall be filled” (Doctrine & Covenants 33:10). By the time April rolled around, I’d already sent Anna a video of myself doing all sorts of stupid stuff around the house during a March snow day. She was gearing up to send me some more pictures that better showed off her bright red hair. We knew it was time to meet each other in person, so I asked her to my junior prom. She was really excited, but her parents (understandably) didn’t want their eldest daughter flying 800 miles away to meet some guy they didn’t know, who could very possibly knock her up (or worse). Not wanting to “cheat”  on her with anyone else, I skipped my junior prom in favor of my second-Friday-of-the-month phone call from Anna. We talked for hours and hours, much of it a tearful treatise on how unfair it was that we couldn’t go to prom together, and I finally said, “I just wish there was some way we could be together forever!” Anna still...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) My most sincere apologies for the backlog, but our new baby daughter, Naomi, was born in Kansas on Monday. Hopefully I’ll still finish up on time! :-D “[I]t becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor” (Doctrine & Covenants 88:81). I don’t remember everything Anna and I talked about, that first night, but I know we were on the phone from 12:30-2:00 a.m., at 14¢ a minute—the then–after-11:00-p.m. rate for a phone call from New Jersey to Indiana. Iit wasn’t a cheap method of contact, but neither was e-mail, anymore. What I do remember is the Anna had just gotten back from visiting her grandparents in her former hometown of Huntington, West Virginia, and I thought she sounded like a hick. Of course, I was tired and kind of mellow, and she thought I sounded like a druggie. Either way, she was everything I’d hoped for (despite having never seen even a picture; e-mail was text-only, back then), and I knew I was in love. A...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7-8). December 30, 1990, was a long day at work (I was a cashier at the local Foodtown) and when I got home at about 9:00 that night, I went right up to my room and went straight to bed. Around midnight, though, I woke up and decided to go check my e-mail. I had five new messages—a pretty significant number, considering both the time period and the fact that I’d only been online for two days—the first of which had arrived at 6:52 p.m. and was from a girl named Anna Queen. She had read my post on The B-52’s board and, as a die-hard B-52’s fan herself, was extremely curious about this greatest hits CD she’d never heard of; “Is it new?” she wondered. I replied that no, it was actually a few years old, but only available in...

(Coming in late? Start from the beginning !) “Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise” ( Alma 37:6 ). It all started in the fall of 1990. Anna Queen, a 16-year-old Latter-day Saint in Dayton, Indiana , had just suffered a wrenching heartbreak when a guy with whom she’d been corresponding online suddenly stopped writing her. Convinced it was because of the horrible school photo she’d recently sent him, she wallowed in the kind of self-pity that only a 16-year-old girl can muster. After several weeks, she begged her Heavenly Father to help her find a really good friend—preferably a guy, since she seemed to get along better with guys, anyway—that would accept her for who she was. Little did she know how her prayer would be answered. Christmas Day, 1990 . As we sat around the tree in my parents’ Pequannock, New Jersey home, ...