This is a guest post from Ryan who grew up in the Midwest, played the piano a lot, served a mission in France, attended BYU, and became a scientist. Now he lives with his happy little family, and still plays the piano.
In Mormonism, it is commonly understood that your “Eternal Family” is your biological family that you are sealed to in the temple. This understanding helps to produce loving and devoted families, but it also gives rise to great suffering, particularly when family members leave the church. I know a couple who lost a son to death, yet they said the pain of the death was less than watching another son become estranged from the church. As family-related anguish increases in the church, my message is that this type of suffering can be reduced by considering teachings about the Eternal Family that are found in the New Testament.
In the Bible, Jesus doesn’t talk about separate family units in heaven. Rather heaven is to know God, and to be united, or one, with all believers, just as Jesus is one with the Father (John 17). Paul said of the people of the church: “you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household.” God has one household, one family. This family transcends the biological family. “While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12: 46-50).
According to Jesus, to be part of God’s family, we must do “the will of the Father.” Sometimes doing God’s will can put us at odds with our biological family members. Early converts to Christianity and Mormonism often faced rejection from their families. I have an ancestor whose parents died in Nauvoo when he was a teenager. He could have gone back to the East to live with his non-LDS extended family in relative comfort, but instead he chose to follow the family of God that was going to Utah. Sometimes there is tension between belonging to your biological family and belonging to the family of God. Jesus said:
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:34-39).
To follow Jesus is to change, and there are always members of any family who will resist the change. Mormons who are in “faith transitions” often change rapidly and this can lead to social isolation. But it doesn’t have to be that way. A faith crisis can be an opportunity to build new relationships in and out of the church. As I experienced my own “faith transition” about eight years ago, I was fortunate to find a Men’s Bible Study group at a local Methodist church. They took me in, showed me love and concern, and helped me to feel valued, appreciated and loved. There I rediscovered the Bible in an environment that was free of the expectations and pressures of LDS culture and teachings. From the men at Bible study, I learned to engage the Bible in ways that are honest, yet believing. Eventually, over several years, they helped to rekindle my faith in God. As I have prayed with them, I have glimpsed the vision of that unity that Jesus prayed that his followers would accomplish. How could this fellowship not be part of the Body of Christ, the kingdom of God, God’s Eternal Family, and, by extension, my own Eternal Family?
I know that other Mormons who have experienced faith crises have been blessed by other “adopted families” both in and out of the church, including the Mormon Stories community. I am grateful for John Dehlin’s efforts to provide isolated Mormons with refuge, comfort, and an adopted family.
To find an adopted family in Christ is profoundly Biblical. When he was on the cross, Jesus created a new family. He didn’t perform a formal temple sealing, he didn’t make a biological family, but he made an adopted family:
“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother… When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home (John 19: 25-27).
This may sound heretical to some, but I believe that power that binds God’s Eternal Family together is love, and that this is more important than formal priesthood authority and ordinances (1 Cor 13). The two great commandments are to love God and to love our neighbors (Matt 22:36-40); love is the key by which to recognize the true disciples of Jesus (John 13:35). John Wesley, a founder of Methodism, said, “The Gospel of Christ knows no religion but social; no holiness, but social holiness.”
My prayer is for healing in families that have been broken apart by current debates in the church on topics like gender roles, priesthood authority, church doctrines, and homosexuality. Anyone who can’t find reconciliation with our biological families on these issues can draw strength and courage from God’s Eternal Family, both in and out of the church. If we then bring what we learn back to our families, we may eventually be able to help them heal.
Wheat & Tares 
This is a great post, I’ve felt some estrangement myself with my family over my faith transition….and I also sought out a place that accepted me as an unorthodox member. It’s a delicate balance.
I was listening to the first Maxwell Institute podcast the other day with the Givens’ and she mentioned that she really thinks Christ and Joseph Smith were universalists, and that eternal progression included progressing up in the kingdoms of the next life. It struck me how this belief would save so many families from overreacting to a change of beliefs in their children. I wish this “I would rather have you orthodox and dead than alive and apostate” bit could be unraveled as folk doctrine. I’m tired of hearing that my grandparents and other family members whisper behind my back about how worried they am that I’m lost to apostasy forever. Um, hello? 100% active, 100% vt-Ing, temple attending, scripture reading member over here?? Smh
Back to the OP, I’ve come to believe less in such a cartoonish “my family is forever” and also see the sealings only purpose as a way to become a covenant people and sealed as a part of “God’s eternal family.” A communal live for everyone we see would be a heavenly family. Maybe then members could get over their angst at who’s sealed to who etc….
Thanks for the beautiful post Ryan. There have been two kinds of children falling away in my family: the rebellious ones who drop out of school, start taking drugs and lead somewhat dissolute lives. Then there are the “good” children who fall away because of faith crisis after going to BYU, having a few kids and serving faithfully in the church. For my parents, this second category is much more painful. I don’t have any evidence, but I would probably guess that the chances of the “good” kids coming back to the church are much lower than the rebellious kids.
This is ironic, since the apostate “good” children lead such respectable, exemplary lives on other accounts. Any parent should be proud and happy to have such children. Yet it is easier to have hope for the dissolute prodigals, waiting for them to hit rock bottom, after which they will presumably climb their way back into the embrace of the church.
I’m with Kristine A that “I would rather have you orthodox and dead than alive and apostate” is a folk doctrine. Maybe not a folk doctrine, because it is easy to see how it arises out of LDS doctrine. But I think it demonstrates a misunderstanding of the incredible length of eternity and of the diversity of paths, personalities, and plans God Himself gives to His children.
I also just remembered in another maxwell institute podcast I was listening to they were talking about how some Mormons think our spirits are literally born of heavenly father and how others believe we were pre-existing intelligences whom Heavenly Father adopted as his own offspring. Both beliefs are acceptable, but it brings another perspective into how we can adopt each other as family and our obligation to love adopted family as He loves us. Such a coincidence this came up a day after I listened to that.
My first thought on reading this was, “I’ll bet Kristine weighed in on this one.” 🙂
It has been apparent to me for some time, probably since I was taught the doctrine of eternal families about the time of my baptism, that the idea of maintaining the nuclear family in the eternities was a non-starter. After all, I had a strong interest right from the start in taking a particular LDS woman out of the home of her parents and starting our own eternal family; how then could she remain in a child’s position in my in-laws’ mansion above? Now that I have one married child and another three months from his wedding, I’m seeing that truth from the other side. I expect that my kids will remain sealed to me, but if the sealing extends through all the family of humanity, we will all be sealed to each other. The only question remaining will be whether we live in such a way as to show up for the party.
I taught that truth to my kids by talking to them about a friend they had in Primary. That friend’s dad has a sister, who is married to my wife’s cousin. The cousin and his parents are sealed, and my wife and her parents are sealed, and the parents have done the work for their parents and grandparents. (I’ll give you a minute to digest that . . . ok.) Thus, I said, you guys are sealed to Noah and his brothers.
This was met with skeptical puzzlement. “Look. Grandpa and Cousin Barb are sealed to their parents and grandparents, and they have the same grandparents. You guys are sealed to Grandpa up through Mom, and Noah to Cousin Barb through his dad and aunt. It all connects. But it doesn’t mean we’re going to be One Big Household in eternity. You’ll have wives and husbands of your own, and kids, and so on, and so on. Heavenly Father’s goal is to get us ALL sealed together.”
Now that my eldest has been married for more than a year, I think he gets that he’s not going to be living with us for eternity. I just wish he’d move out of my basement. 🙂