This is part two of my series of articles overviewing evidence indicating the Church will be deceived by the Antichrist.

Part 1 – Politics

Part 3 – Scriptures

In part 2, here I aim to explain some of the doctrinal problems with my Church. In brief, my larger view is that the major problems with my Church (being deceived by the antichrist and leading followers to take the mark of the beast), have not happened yet, but are going to happen. At the moment, the Church is still mostly true and good. However, as I have tried to show in this series of articles, there are a few symptoms of apostasy that have already crept into the Church. My aim is not to persuade people to leave the Church or get angry at church leaders. Instead, it is to prepare people for the future – in which the Church ends up being deceived.

Before I Start, A Personal Story

I think the situation in which I write this article is symbolic of the situation of religion. I have been visiting Tbilisi and currently am in a park on a hillside. I hadn’t expected it to be windy today, so didn’t bring adequate clothing to protect from the cold. Therefore, upon a bit of wandering, I found the best place of shelter against the wind is to sit against the wall of a church on the opposite side from the wind. After finding my spot (which still does not perfectly protect against the wind), I tried to use my computer but found it would not turn on, so I said a short prayer and instantly after the prayer my computer worked.

Such is emblematic of larger things: if we are fully prepared (by wearing the garments of righteousness), we won’t need a physical church to shelter us from the storms of life. However, for the vast majority of us (myself included), we are not like this, and so a physical organization will be useful in offering shelter. Nevertheless, such shelter isn’t perfect and won’t be a full substitute for personally being in a good place with God and having a relationship with him (likewise, I enjoy this bit of shelter against the church, but still wish I had a blanket). So, being part of a physical church organization is a substitute for having a personal relationship with God – it is better than nothing, but not as good as a true relationship with God.

This Article Pains me to Write

As I have mentioned, it pains me to complain about my Church because it is still something dear to me. My goal in this website is not to convince people to abandon their faith (which is usually the goal when you read material complaining about churches) – but rather the opposite – to take you faith farther than your church can.

It’s also difficult to complain about my Church because it remains the fount of basically all my religious views. Many of the ideas described in my articles have come from my Church. And the Church still teaches truths in meetings, so it seems spiteful to turn to complaining.

Nevertheless, I still feel it is necessary to properly describe the situation in my church.

Lack of Revelation

Though it claims to be lead by a prophet and apostles who receive revelations, there is no manifestation of such revelations. The prophet never reveals to us dreams, visions, or words of God he has received. Some members believe that these revelations are not shared because they are too sacred, however this view greatly contradicts the scriptures, which dictate that prophets primarily receive revelations so that they can be shared as a warning (Ezekiel 3:17-19, Ezekiel 33:8-9, Acts 20:26-27, Jacob 1:19, Mosiah 2:27-28).

The problem with the situation is that the members have been conditioned to believe that only Church officials can receive revelations and normal people cannot. It is my sad experience that nobody in my church has taken anything I have said seriously and I have even been told that I would be taken seriously if I was a bishop or higher church calling. Which is such a tragedy – our Church started off as being one of the very few religious organizations that doesn’t believe God is dead or his miracles ceased; Now however, the Church is just like all the others – rejecting true revelation whenever they are seen.

Temples

In my view, the temples in my church are apostasy; I see no references to our temple practices in the scriptures, and the original Nauvoo temple Joseph Smith built wasn’t even constructed in a way that would facilitate such practices (so I know that these practices didn’t come from Joseph Smith). Another symptom of the temple ordinances being wrong is how often they have been changes – they aren’t particularly bad currently, but in the past were particularly strange (in the ritual washing members were nude (though no gender mixing occurs here), and part of it involves promising to slit your own throat and disembowel yourself if you break temple ordinances). To my knowledge, there still remains one strange thing about temple ordinances however: participants have to promise to commit to everything in the ordinances at the start, before they even know what they are committing to (and there is not a practical way to even know because of the obsession of secrecy); this could be gone though given how frequently temple ordinances are changed nowadays.

The main problem I have with the temple ordinances is I feel they focus on all the wrong things. The washing and anointing is all about receiving temporal blessings and added strength but never mentions what you do for God or how you will change. In the second part of the ceremony, there is a huge emphasis on promising to 1) Obey, 2) Sacrifice, and 3) Consecrate ones resources towards the Church. These are not necessarily wrong, but what bothers me is what it doesn’t include: an emphasis on loving and forgiving others, being humble / childlike / teachable, seeking forgiveness through the atonement, and ultimately trying to change one’s heart to be more Christlike. So, the product is members who are obsessed with obeying Church authority (authority which doesn’t appear to be receiving revelations), while not at all focusing on actually changing their hearts to be more humble and Christlike. And that is exactly what I have seen in Church members – so the ordinance worked I guess!

There are other problems: The temple ceremony ends with members receiving a new name and special hand gestures, and using these to pass through a veil (which is symbolic of entering heaven). So obviously the implication is that we need occult knowledge to enter heaven – this is Gnosticism – which is of course extremely false! We enter heaven through the grace of Jesus Christ, not through any special knowledge!

Another thing that bothers me about temples are the symbols. The temples are full of strange symbols representing various parts of the gospel – but again, there are no symbols for core elements of the gospel: love, humility, Jesus Christ, the atonement, grace, forgiveness, and changing your heart. Ultimately, when I go through the temple, I get the perception that the architects and designers of ceremonies have a completely different perception of the gospel than I do (described most best in these two articles:  Four Steps to Salvation, Seven Principles That Fundamentally Alter How Christians See the World).

I also know that temples are bad because perhaps a year ago I had a dream in which I was in an LDS temple, and somehow I knew that everything I was seeing was an illusion – as in the temple structure and walls were not physically like how they looked – there was something darker behind it all. Following this, I went to a meeting in which a leader encouraged us to bring our friends to the temple, and I had the strong impression that this leader was somehow evil and what he was telling us to do was wrong.

Sexuality

In my Church, it is commonly taught that sex is a divine gift that allows couples to achieve greater union. I remember, one time in a single adult ward, there was a special meeting in which a high up leader gave us a speech about sex in which he explained this doctrine. In his speech, he was more graphic than seemed necessary and included a part about how amazing he feels when he has sex; I also think he might have discussed birth control in a positive light. At the time, I was quite shocked. Right now, if it happened, I would have raised my hand and started arguing with him. So, I will address this belief in brief here:

Firstly, there is nothing in the scriptures that says sex is a divine gift to couples. In fact, as Paul teaches, the opposite is true: Sex should be avoided (though if you cannot contain yourself it is OK to do so with a spouse). In my opinion, this means that the only reason we ever should have sex is to create children and have a family. “Recreational Sex” is not recommended, though if you cannot control yourself, you can still indulge in recreational sex with a spouse [please refrain from laughing, I know my view is unpopular].

However, when I bring this stuff up to other members, the response usually is that Paul wasn’t really an apostle and his epistles shouldn’t have been part of the scriptures. Which is just crazy! Some of the most core doctrines that are unique to Mormonism come directly from Paul (example: the three kingdoms of glory in heaven & baptism for the dead). In fact, the only person in the Bible to have been raised from the dead and to have risen someone else from the dead (besides Jesus Christ), is in fact Paul! Paul truly is one of the greatest individuals in the Bible, and it seems like apostasy to discount him.

Beyond the scriptures, there are a few obvious reasons why recreational sex (even among married couples) should be avoided. Firstly (as is well documented online), it leads to adultery. A husband starts by getting addicted to sex with his wife; then he goes on a trip without his wife and decides it is OK masturbate while visualizing his wife; this turns into pornography (which at first is justified by visualizing your wife, but this justification is later forgotten); and after the husband is hooked on pornography, he decides that it must also be OK to have sex with an actual person who is not his wife (as long as he doesn’t intend to have a protracted affair of course); Eventually, he decides he is no longer attracted to his wife and leaves her.

Secondly, it leads to sex with girlfriends / boyfriends (which of course violates the commandment against premarital sex outlined in my article The Commandments). After being taught their whole life that sex is a gift to foster increased partnership within a couple, it is only natural for couples to think that sex is a good and productive thing they can do to improve their relationship.

Thirdly, it leads to pornography usage: If you hear your whole life from your spiritual leaders about how awesome sex is and how it is like their purpose in life, then you start to internalize these doctrines. Consequently, it becomes easy to think that it is impossible for you to be happy living a life of abstinence. Therefore, pornography users give up trying to quit because they think the situation is hopeless. The truth is of course the opposite: sex should not be your purpose in life; sex should not be a significant source of happiness in life; sex should occur very infrequently among married couples; if you are not having sex, that is in fact fine and good and preferrable.

Obsession with Works and Authority over Heart

My observation is that most members seem to either think that we are saved through 1) ordinances such as Baptism performed with correct priesthood authority (which only people in our Church possess and therefore we are performing baptisms for the dead so people of other faiths can also be saved); 2) works serving the Church through time/money. Of course, both points are slightly true, and I do believe we have a point on the power of priesthood authority (as described in this article: Spiritual Warfare).

However, members are mostly missing the point in my view: the (overwhelmingly) most important thing is to change our hearts so that our hearts align with God. Part of this involves becoming humble, teachable, childlike, and meek. If your heart is in the right place, it won’t matter whether you have served a huge amount of time in the Church (since you don’t earn salvation), and having correct authority during baptism can be resolved later through proxy baptisms for the dead. Conversely, if you are prideful, arrogant, and regularly disdainful towards loved ones, that is going to go down with you for the eternities, and your careful efforts to have proper priesthood authority in ordinances or pay the correct amount of money to the Church will all have been in vain. It is almost a stereotype to me the phenomenon of members believing they will go to heaven because of all the service they have done for the church, despite being routinely cruel and disrespectful towards family members.

As a tangent, I have even heard at church a lesson discussing “humility” in which the teacher did not seem to even know what humility meant. He seemed to think it means vaguely following the gospel, and when I commented that part of humility involves not thinking you are more awesome than you actually are he corrected me (lol). This seems representative of how many members do not know or internalize the importance of humility.

* For a more in depth discussion on topics in this section (Obsession with Works and Authority over Heart), you can see these two articles: The Dark Side of Organized Religion, Four Steps to Salvation.

Shallow Doctrines

When going to Church, my observation is that many things said are very shallow and repetitive. It’s hard to really substantiate this claim, you would have to see to understand. I guess I will note that the ideas found in these two articles of mine: Seven Principles That Fundamentally Alter How Christians See the World, Four Steps to Salvation, seem like core doctrines that should be taught and repeated; however they never seem to be discussed. Moreover, the idea of “Spiritual Warfare” is likewise never discussed in my religion, and there are very few lessons that ever give insight into how to overcome addictions (see my article Overcoming Addictions). I guess their response would be: it is hard to get everything right when you are mostly a layperson Church in which random members give talks during sacrament meetings. And my response to that is: I understand, but it seems like the leaders of my Church simply don’t have a big picture understanding of the gospel (otherwise they would direct people to discuss it), and how is it that I have a better understanding of the gospel than them when I am only 23 years old? (hopefully I don’t come across as too prideful here, wouldn’t that be ironic)

Missing Teachings

One thing I have noted is that in my church, we have not incorporated into our prayers praise for the lord. This seems like a mistake, if we assume that Psalms is a blueprint for how to prayer. It is my view that praising God does have an effect, and that in our prayers we should include segments declaring the good traits of God (he is merciful, just, wise, etc.).

Recently, I have also noted that in this scripture (James 5:16) we are told to confess our faults to others. Confessing sins to other people (besides God) is not part of my religion so I am still trying to figure out exactly how to practice this scripture.

Finally, on a more personal note, there are no teachings or guidelines in my religion on how to process dreams and visions from God (because it is assumed that this never happens to normal members). I wish there was! I have had a hard time deciding how to react to my spiritual experiences (detailed in this website). Should I start a YouTube channel? Should I send emails to Church Leaders? Should I do nothing? Is my making this website a huge overreaction?

Final Words

I hope I don’t come across as a complainer in this article. I understand that all of these issues I have brought up (even when combined together) are minor. I am very grateful for the gospel education I have received through my Church, and the fundamental truths I have learned through my religion (that other Christian sects do not offer), vastly and overwhelmingly outweighs the scant criticisms I have brought up in this article. Again, my goal in this article is not to persuade people to leave the Church, but rather to help them prepare for the future in which the Church is deceived.