By a raise of hands, how many of you were taught that your sins were washed away by the waters of baptism?
While we don’t literally believe that the water washes them away, I always thought that the when coming up from the water, you were “washed” clean of your sins, and at that very moment you were sinless.
Elder Renlund seemed to pushed back on that idea at his last General Conference address.
When I was eight years old, I was baptized by my father. Afterward, I held his hand as we were going to cross a busy street. I was not paying attention and stepped from the curb just as a big truck came rumbling by. My father jerked me back, out of the street and onto the curb. Had he not done so, I would have been hit by the truck. Knowing my own mischievous nature, I thought, “Maybe it would have been better for me to be killed by the truck because I’ll never be as clean as I am now right after my baptism.”
As an eight-year-old, I had mistakenly presumed that the water of baptism washed away sins. Not so. In the years since my baptism, I have learned that sins are cleansed by the power of Jesus Christ through His atoning sacrifice as we make and keep the baptismal covenant. Then, through the gift of repentance, we can remain clean. I have also learned that the sacrament brings a powerful virtuous cycle into our lives, enabling us to retain a remission of our sins.
Oct 2023 General Conference, Sunday afternoon
When I first read this, I thought that he was just driving home the point that the water is not literally washing away your sins, as an eight-year-old is prone to think. But then as I ponderized ™ his talk, I wondered if there was more to this. What was he mistaken about?
I came up with three different interpretations of this part of the talk:
- The water does not literally wash away the sins, but the atonement does. You are sinless when you come up from the water
- The time immediately after one’s baptism is not the only time you are sinless, but through the atonement, one can have forgiveness of their sins and be sinless (thus negating the need to step in front of a car at eight years old. )
- Not only was he wrong as a little boy to think that the water washed away his sins, but he was wrong to think he was sinless upon leaving the baptism font. Bringing up the “maybe it would have been better for me to be killed” thought, he then pushes back on that idea because he was not cleansed at that moment, but only later as “we keep” the baptismal covenant? Is this a new thought in Mormon theology? Are we not sinless when we leave the waters of baptism, or does that only come by living up to the baptism covenant? Is this just another reminder to be obedient, to follow the Prophet?
What I’m hoping he was trying to say is number 2 above, that the “no so” clause applied to the fact that there are other times in his life, through the atonement, that he could be completely sinless, so the thought that he might have been better off stepping in front of a car right after his baptism was mistaken.
How do you read Renlund’s talk? Maybe he was is just saying that the water is not the actual washing mechanism for the cleansing of sins, but we are still sinless in that moment. If that was the case, why the push against the “better off dead” thought?
What do you think?
Wheat & Tares 
LDS doctrine states that children under the age of 8 are innocent, unable to truly know right from wrong and are incapable of sin.
LDS culture includes telling newly-baptized 8 year olds that all their sins were just washed away via baptism/atonement.
So .. does the culture view children of being capable of sin? Hmmm.
It seems to me that ‘being acceptable’ is not a yes/no question – that you are not acceptable to God just before the baptism and ARE acceptable to him/her as soon as you rise from the water. We are on a lifelong – no, an eternitylong march toward becoming better people; better to each other; better in our desires and aspirations. In that view, there is no room for an in/out proposition regarding the doors of heaven. In that view, agreeing to be baptized is merely acknowledging our acceptance of Jesus as our Mediator, our Advocate, our Guide.
Elder Renlund’s story reminded me that the LDS view of Salvation is a mix of Christian simplicities that are combined to make an unsolvable complexity. The simplicities are found in the section of Elder Renlund’s talk quoted in Bishop Bill’s post. So why does the doctrine of “Mormon” Salvation get so complex?
One reason is because we take the 4th Article of Faith as “connect the dots” for gaining Salvation. The principles of Faith and Repentance precede Baptism so what happens after Baptism? Note that the 4 “steps” in the 4th Article of Faith mirror the answer Peter gave to Jews (non-Christians) who heard his preaching on the Day of Pentecost (see Acts 2:37-38).
What is not said, but implied in Peter’s answer and taught throughout Scripture is that what is always necessary for Salvation is to exercise Faith unto Repentance. A lot of LDS misunderstanding would be corrected if the 4th Article of Faith was edited to affirm that Faith and Repentance are THE fundamental principles of Salvation, especially after Baptism and not just before it.
Baptism, being an expression of Faith and of Repentance yields a remission of Sins. The water does not do this cleansing, although it is symbolic of it. Any person who is baptized with pure intent is washed clean of their sins by the power of Christ’s Atonement. This is not because of the water, but because the person is exercising Faith unto Repentance.
Of course little children cannot sin. So what purpose to a child is baptism? The Book of Mormon teaches that baptizing a child with the view the child needs a remission of sins is an abomination. Consequently, LDS do not generally view their child baptisms as involving a remission of sins, but rather as a step of spiritual progression. Yet since baptism cleanses one of sin we get the idea voiced in Primary to children that they never are more pure than the day they are baptized. Hence the perspective shared by Elder Renlund.
The complexity of Mormon Salvation seemed to be tied to the need for Mormon leadership to have authority over who can be saved. This need has been expanding since the beginning of the church.
Initially, Joseph Smith took a sledgehammer to the notion that men controlled or governed who is saved. Salvation was purely God’s determination (see section 137):
“All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God;”
“All children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven.”
No baptism required.
No works required.
If God knows you would have been righteous in the Gospel then you will be so rewarded. And not just saved, but saved in the Celestial Kingdom! Observe that this teaching of Joseph Smith invites the diabolical notion that killing children is to reward such children with a free pass to the Celestial kingdom. This is a variation of the “better off dead” idea shared by Elder Renlund.
Joseph Smith later taught that spiritual progress and rewards are contingent on personal growth – no one is handed a glory without “earning it” (see section 130)
Joseph Smith then taught that Baptism was required of deceased persons. Proxy baptism and additional ordinances for the deceased has since become a core and defining practice of the LDS Church. Lest there be no misunderstanding, per LDS doctrine, all salvation of all people passes through their control! Proof that the church means this is seen in their massive worldwide temple building operation, of which 99.99% of temple activity is on behalf of deceased persons.
Saved by grace or saved by works? LDS doctrine and policy has been ever shifting and now definitely skews hard towards the latter.
In that case, it would be important not to baptize two different people in the same water. Because the sins of person no. 1 would be there waiting to infect person no. 2.
Imagining that the baptism itself remits sin is an example of magical thinking. Baptism, like all covenants, is symbolic. Symbols, are not the actual thing. They represent something. Similarly words are not the actual thing, however they represent an idea and a sound, but at no point is the word baptism actually the same thing as a commitment ritual to follow Christ.
The word baptism merely symbolizes a commitment ritual to follow Christ. The commitment ritual to follow Christ symbolizes being washed clean of your sins. Being clean of sin occurs day by day as we express that commitment by following Christ.
As expressing this commitment is the actual utility of baptism, I prefer
to focus on the baptismal commitment in the Book of Mormon
to mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort. To me, this is the central meaning of baptism, and it isn’t about being pure and perfect and better than other people who haven’t been baptized.
The same can be said of other rituals. For instance, the temple rituals are symbolic, representing certain things. This is why the temple rituals can be changed. They are only inadequate symbols which can increase our commitment to follow Jesus Christ.
At the time the temple rituals were changed the first time during RMN’s presidency, I was studying 3 languages on Duolingo, Swedish, Welsh and Spanish. It’s interesting to consider that although our minds require words and symbols to represent meaning, the words and symbols, either spoken, written, or acted out in ritual, are not the actual items symbolized.
The actual item symbolized by the ritual of baptism is being washed clean of sin by the blood of Christ. Being washed clean occurs through our commitment to actually follow Christ. Actually following Christ is the end point of all the ritual and symbolism.
I know this will never happen but if we really believed what we say (i.e., “age of accountability) we would change the age for baptism from 8 to 18 or 21. Johnny and Suzy are not capable of making a real life decision at age 8 that Elder Bednar will then use against them when they are older.
I find it shocking that the GA’s continue to use these terms and themes:
“Maybe it would have been better for me to be killed” -Renlund
“It is better to die in defending one’s virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle”- Kimball
I would rather have you come back in a pine box with your virtue than return alive without it.-McConkie
“There is no true Latter-day Saint who would not rather bury a son or daughter than to have him or her lose his or her chastity”- Heber Grant
This is one of the tragedies of Mormonism GA/Prophets/Men teaching harmfully false ideas under the guise of speaking for God. Do we believe, there is no circumstance in which a person’s sin or life situation is beyond the reach and redemption of Jesus? Romans 5:6-11.
If we were so anxious to come to earth and get a body, why so much focus on dying and leaving here?
The GA’s need to apologize for past statements and be more careful with their words and stories.
They say that some members misinterpret and do not understand the message. What am I missing?
It is no wonder there is a high rate of suicide and emotional depression in the Mormon culture.
I’ve always teased people that there are many scriptures about baptism that one should never use on the soon-to-be baptized kids. Romans 6:4-6 comes to mind. Symbolically for the author if Romans, baptism is the DEATH of one’s sinful nature. Sure to terrify the kids if they think about it too much.
Also baptism has been described as “washing” or “cleansing” in scripture. So I don’t think the traditional description we’ve given kids is really that far off. The problem comes with absolutist or overly simplistic thinking. We all know that any symbol or metaphor eventually breaks down.
A close family member told me she had suicidal thoughts when she was 7 for the exact reason Elder Renlund describes. I’m glad to see him attempting to undo/prevent some of this harmful thinking.
But the whole concept of sin and worthiness is irretrievably messed up. Phrases like “no unclean thing can enter the kingdom of God” and “The Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” are baked into our scriptures and they’re not going anywhere. Compound that with the intense shaming we inflict on “sinners” and the arbitrary and unethical nature of our commandments—coffee is bad but sexism is ok, sexually explicit interviews with minors is ok but two gay adults holding hands isn’t?!—The result is a recipe for toxic scrupulosity in some members and blithe ignorance of basic ethics in others.
The truth is that sin is a construct. It doesn’t really exist. What does exist is moral consequence. Something as simple as buying a shirt may contribute to human suffering by enabling to a system of exploitation in the supply chain. But that doesn’t mean you are “spiritually dead” or “unworthy,” it just means that all of us have a continuous responsibility to improve ourselves and the systems we inhabit.
Renlunds words, on both fronts, baptism and Atonement, for me, miss the mark. I am routinely frustrated by the fact that we, the LDS faith tradition, posits our mortal sojourn as a “fortunate fall”, rejecting outright credal Christianity’s notion of human depravity, and then we turn right around and position “Baptism” or “Atonement” as tools deployed to clean up the mess. We have made God’s plan reactionary, making humans the ones steering the ship, while God offers up a solution to placate his need to only spend time with the children who have washed the mud off before they entire his pristine house. Whether its baptism or the Atonement that washes us clean, to me, it makes no difference, they both are telling a story that positions God, as Sam Browns expresses, as the NSA Kolob branch, conducting ongoing adversarial surveillance. The goal being to continually wipe the docket clean only to have it completely replenished by the next Sunday. Can we not see the problem with this way of viewing Christ and his gospel? It is a self-absorbed process, consumed with my own failures, and if I spend my life staring into my own darkness, what’s preventing me from focusing on the failures in other people as well.
Jesus is the revelation of God in the flesh. We needed to see God up close and personal, so we could see what love does. God sent Jesus, in my mind, to awaken mankind to a new way, replacing the old tried and failed ways of positioning salvation as a reward, and instead making salvation “The Way”. Jesus constantly describes salvation, not as a noun, but as an adverb. Adverbs don’t describe the characteristic of a person; they only describe the manner in which they do something. For example, quick versus quickly. Quick describes the person, while quickly describes the manner in which they do something.
God, by way of Jesus, is always revealing something about his own nature, hence, Jesus’ reply to his disciples, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father”.
What does the ordinance of baptism reveal about the nature of God?
For me, it reveals a fundamental truth about life, and growth, how we get stuck (damned), and how we get unstuck (redeemed)
It reveals the nature of life and the need for second chances. We need a way that changes how we connect to our past, such that, the accumulated scars don’t paralyze our engagement with growth (faith), where our past becomes our teacher, instead of our accuser. It has been my experience that, if this were not so, our failings pile up and create a kind of despair that would crush us and often does. Covenants, in this way, are not a way for me to get right with God, but a way for me to get with God so I can be made right. Christ is attempting to liberate us from this perpetual task of proving our worth, in exchange for a life lived from the voice that calls us “beloved”. In the profound words of my favorite Christmas anthem “Oh Holy Night”, “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till he appeared, and the soul felt its worth”. Let those words sink in, he came of prove us worthy, not the other way around.
Mortality is structured in a way where the only possibility for growth is new beginnings. Jesus’ sacrifice tells the story where sin and suffering are not the end of the road, but part of the process. Baptism illustrates the reality that growth (theosis), is not a function of avoiding error but the process of alchemizing it. It transforms our past into a teacher rather than permanent condemnation.
Baptism, for me, is not a way to wash me clean, but a way for me to bury my false self and awaken to meeting life through the lens of love. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a way to escape sin and suffering, but the manner of responding to it, in a way that it can be redeemed.
SACRAMENT
Rather than seeing the sacrament as a symbol of my having performed well enough this week, on my own, that I deserve to partake.
See it as a kind of, shared confession of our need for God and each other.
First of all, thanks to Bishop Bill for the post. I woke up earlier than I wanted to this morning and passed the time by reading W&T. I quickly realized that the wording of my sacrament meeting talk was at variance with Renlund’s message and was able to change it in time. (I was contrasting baptism with the washing ordinance, which is quite explicit that it is contingent on later behavior, so I should have known better.)
And I am dismayed with the either sloppy or bad faith reading of Renlund’s words by certain commenters. He is not even remotely suggesting that there is merit to the “better off dead” sentiment. He is only acknowledging that the sentiment exists so he can dissuade people from it.
Lastlemming, Yes I agree, Redlund was trying to put the rest the awful idea that somehow it would be better for an 8 year old child to die soon after his/her baptism. But as many of the comments show, this awful idea came from the teaching of our Prophets. Maybe when/if Redlund is Prophet he can correct this more forcefully, instead of changing the name of the church’s website.
Also, I’m glad I was able to help with your talk, and I’m sure you gave proper attribution with a small shout out to Bishop Bill at the beginning of your talk!
I don’t know any adults who are sinless.
Heather Gay shared a similar statement in her book Bad Mormon about being so sad when she made a mistake after she was baptized because now she wasn’t clean.
She said later in an interview that she received hundreds of me too responses to this part of her story.
I’ve also heard many baptism talks about being the cleanest person in the room to the kids.
So it’s a thing. And rather than address why it’s a thing, the leaders shut it down without recognizing their part in causing and perpetuating the problem.
To me it’s pretty obvious that Elder Renlund’s talk contradicts a ubiquitously taught doctrine. Just today in Primary we sang, “I know when I am baptized my wrongs are washed away.”
The usual rebuttal to the sentiment that we’re better off dying immediately after baptism is the extrascriptural notion that taking the sacrament is like getting baptized every week. Here’s Elder Packer: “Generally we understand that, conditioned upon repentance, the ordinance of baptism washes our sins away. Some wonder if they were baptized too soon. If only they could be baptized now and have a clean start. But that is not necessary! Through the ordinance of the sacrament, you renew the covenants made at baptism.”
On the flip side, we have Elder Talmage: “The sacrament has not been established as a specific means of securing remission of sins…”
The nice thing about this inconsistency from Church leaders is that it allows us to apply whatever meaning we want to our ordinances.
Like Chadwick pointed out, I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling traumatized a few months post my baptism when I got into a fight with another girl – it was quite the justified little brawl. I’m sure I was taught about the meaning and purpose of baptism but obviously missed the part on the ability to receive repentance on post-baptism mistakes and sins. I seriously wondered if I was going to hell? And then likewise on minor sexual straying as a teen after having been taught that sexual sins were second to murder – what the heck? So much damage and shame. The church will have a lot to answer for on all the suicides, particularly from within the LGBTQ+ community. It breaks my heart.
Honestly I don’t see much difference between baptizing an infant and baptizing an 8-year-old.
8 years old feels like the most ridiculously arbitrary age…sure we’ve backfilled all sorts of symbolism and meaning into that number, but D&C 68 sure seems a lot more concerned with guilting parents into having their children baptized than about the actual well-being of the kids. I understand it’s symbolic and it’s a rite of passage, but the whole doctrine is a big mess:
D&C 68:25 says pretty bluntly that if parents don’t get their kids baptized by 8 that the kid’s sins on on the heads of the parents…but AoF 2 says we’re punished for our own sins and not Adam’s transgression, which is always extended to mean that kids aren’t responsible for any of our ancestors’ screwups either. So it’s not a two way street? Parents are indefinitely accountable for the mistakes of their unbaptized children? …There’s no age cutoff given.
Also, there’s no way a kid is suddenly a condemned sinner the moment they turn 8. Have you ever met an 8yo? We don’t consider people to be responsible enough to sign papers for themselves until 18, but every 8yo suddenly holds their own eternal salvation in their tiny innocent hands?! Not to mention that biologically the human brain doesn’t finish developing until the mid to late 20s.
Sure an 8yo is old enough to start to take on some awareness and responsibility…but telling a kid at 8 that they’re now on the hook for every misstep?
Baptism at 8 years old is Joseph Smith guilting parents into securing the next generation of the church while simultaneously terrifying small children and their parents with the threat of eternal damnation.
Any time a kid has to think, “would I be better off being killed by a truck?” it’s a clear sign that it’s the adults who have really screwed something up…and I think this particular type of treatment of children falls squarely into the territory of Mark 9:42, and that millstone is hanging around the neck of many church leaders past and present.
Toddsmithson, I agree with your post with the exception of your baked-in acceptance of Nicene sectarian trinity.
I nominate Zla’od for top comment of the year.
Top comment of the year! Woo-hoo!
Follow the brethren, and cistern.
dmtm – thanks and I’m interested how I can reword to avoid the baked-in acceptance of Nicene sectarian trinity. In other words, what
made you draw that conclusion? Thanks
I have never seen a stand alone above ground font like the one in the picture. Could be a problem to get out of discreetly once your clothes have gone see through.
Once lived in a tourist area, ( the blue mountains) and had a famous architect design our chapel. He asked about beliefs, and got that baptism was important. He put the baptismal font in the entry way saying if it is important it should not be hidden in the bathroom.
The main corridor from the car park at the back, to the chapel at the front has an arched ceiling (its a church), and one side of the chapel had giant gutters that usually had some water in that reflected moving ripples on the chapel ceiling. The heating was useless though.
The building won architectural awards, and most Sundays had visits from architecture students. Yellowstone villiage has a unique chapel too.
Personally, as a very literal-minded child, I was terrified in the 36 hours between my birth minute (not just my actual birthday, although I wasn’t sure where the sin clock started exactly, so I imagined it was 8 years from the exact time of my birth) and the time I was immersed in the font. I was convinced that this was my most vulnerable time, when anything I thought that was wrong (my ability to actually commit sins was pretty limited at age 8, but I could think stuff) would become a sin and not just forgivable childishness. If something happened to me in that short time, if I died or went into a coma (and later died), I would suffer the consequences of my sins personally with no atonement. I’d be accountable–it was baked into the words “age of accountability.”
As to this talk, to put it in old timey terms, Renlund’s talk is what they used to call heresy, or in other words, it contradicts the “traditional” dogma of the church. I guess since our leaders are allowed to freelance, it only matters if top dogs Nelson & Oaks will let it slide since this is their church, and they don’t seem bothered, so whatever. (That’s what they mean by prophets, seers, revelators–whatever the current ones say is the doctrine, regardless of any other consideration). The gist of Renlund’s theological shift here is consistent with Bednar and others, and the proponents of the “covenant path.” Instead of ordinances being “salvific” in and of themselves, they are an entry into a covenant, and one’s ongoing obedience is the salvific part. Mormons have always flirted with the idea that we have to be our own saviors. Some might say that those two takes are the same thing, but in theological terms they are not.
It’s definitely part of the authoritarian slide; obey or else. These types of talks are designed to undermine that sense that the Church belongs to the members as well, that once we are baptized we become an essential part of the body of the church. From this angle, once we are baptized, well, nothing. We just have to obey our human leaders with exactness for the rest of our life or be cast out. There’s no shared discipleship here.
Renlund’s talk churned up a lot of negative stuff I thought I had buried deeper. Both before and after my baptism at age 8, I spent a lot of time preoccupied with my own worthiness and salvation, sometimes wondering if I had completely squandered the salvific effects of my baptism by some dumb mistake I made, even wondering, like 8-year-old Renlund, if it would be better if I had died in an unfortunate accident right after baptism. I never did anything too serious, just typical dumb kid stuff, but I often felt like I was really, really bad, because I had internalized all these incorrect teachings. Any belief system that induces an existential crisis in a child is seriously f***ed up and deserves to be called out.
And I carried some of that literal belief into my teenage/young adult years, during which time I insisted on attending local sacrament meetings while traveling or on vacation, because I was worried about letting one week pass without having taken the sacrament, and that if I were to die after skipping a Sunday, it would jeopardize my chances at exaltation. How’s that for “thinking celestial”? Yes, its a little funny to think about now, but at the time I was in a constant state of anxiety about all this stuff, which I now know is unhealthy. And I’m a bit angry about the fact that it was entirely unnecessary.
I’ve also come to realize that many lifelong orthodox Church members continue to live in this state of anxiety throughout their lives; many push that insecurity down onto their descendants, often with disastrous results. Some have important leadership callings, where their unhealthy thought patterns have consequences for the people in their stewardship. And some of them rise to become the President of the Church.
@Angela – I remember feeling something similar when I was 8…a very young age to start suffering from salvation anxiety. I was also having a conversation a few weeks ago with an ex-Mormon friend who said when he was baptized that his dad literally sat him down to tell him that his sins were now his own. That can a heavy burden for many young minds.
@Brad D – I really have to agree with you here. Baptizing kids at age 8 might honestly be worse than baptizing infants – at least an infant is too little to wonder if they’d be better off dead than being a sinner. Notice in Moroni 8 that there is no arbitrary age listed, just that baptizing little children is “a mockery before God.” Who wouldn’t consider an 8-year-old a little kid? I guess a 37-year-old Joseph Smith willing to coerce 14-year-old girls into a marrying him (… speaking of millstones).
That sounds real neat! Was it a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintsian chapel?
Geoff-Aus, that sounds real neat! Was it a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintsian chapel?
Stories about 8yo children feeling anxiety are awful. When I went back to school to become a teacher, we talked a lot about the concept of “unintended consequences.” Basically, there are always things you don’t anticipate, no matter how good the intentions.
Which is why I don’t understand the reluctance to get feedback from members. If we’re all the body of Christ, a brain that doesn’t register pain from any other section causes damage, no matter how intelligent it is.
By far the worst “baptism makes you clean” story I ever heard was the friend who had a priesthood leader tell her that while she was free from sin for early childhood sexual abuse, at the age of 8 she was “old enough to understand right from wrong” and any further abuse she was accountable for because she didn’t stop it.
http://greenmormonarchitect.blogspot.com/2009/08/leura-chapel.html
A blogpost with pictures of the Leura LDS Chapel Geoff -Aus wrote about.
I may just be a simple laborer, but wasn’t the literal vs.symbolic debate around “ordinances” one of the major sticking points of the Reformation? If the Eucharist is merely symbolic, rather than containing the actual body of Christ, then why does one need a priest or a “priesthood” to administer it? If baptism is just a symbol and there are no actual sins literally being washed away, then why does it need to be performed by the “proper authority?” If ordinances don’t “DO” things then what good are they? One could just as easily go on a hike to a waterfall and imagine ones’ “sins,” addictions, bad habits ect. being washed away in the water – while even commiting to personally follow Jesus. I really don’t know the correct answer here, but it seems to me that if Elder Rendlund wants the church to remain relevant in the same stubborn way it has always tried to cling to relevancy, he is conference-talking against his own self-interest.
Thanks Sasso, yes thats it. I had forgotten the skylights in the lounge.
Live 1000k away now but must detour to see it again when going that direction.
When as a 7-year-old I was taught the process of repenting (4 to 6 steps that had to be completed perfectly for each sin in order to receive forgiveness, and that one had to do all those steps for every sin, large or small, and that any unrepented sin could keep you out of the celestial kingdom, and that if you re-committed a sin that you had previously repented of your former repentance was voided and you had to re-repent of all former instances of that sin…) I gave up. Before I was even baptized. I just assumed I would go to the terrestrial kingdom, and I heard that the terrestrial kingdom was pretty great, and so I never really even aimed for the celestial kingdom. I was a rule follower by nature, a teachers pet, an excellent student. I continued to be a generally good kid. But I just didn’t understand the whole Jesus desl. I was grateful to him that I would get to be resurrected, but the rest of it seemed almost annoying to me. How could Jesus be so great if I had to get every last little detail of my repentance worked out perfectly before he could do anything for me? In some ways I’m grateful that this was my response to those ridiculous teachings, because I am now aware that many of my peers suffered scrupulosity and crippling anxiety, trying to get themselves into the celestial kingdom under those rules. I think my mental health was saved by my just giving up on exaltation rather than buying into the program as it was taught. My sister, just two years younger than me, later told me that she had actually prayed as a 7-year-old to die before she turned age 8, painlessly in her sleep, so that she would never have the chance to commit any sins, because the regimen for getting them redeemed as we were taught it was so overwhelming and impossible. I absolutely love President Kimball, but the harshness of The Miracle of Forgiveness bled into the manuals in use during my 1980s childhood and really messed some of us up. Some days I feel like the church owes us free therapy.
As for the whole being washed clean by baptism thing, that’s one of my pet peeves. That song that Primary children sing these days, called “When I Am Baptized,” talks about children being washed clean of their sins at baptism. I don’t really like the imagery of being washed by baptism, I prefer the death and resurrection concept, but regardless, we can’t say that they have any sins to be cleansed of if they’re being baptized at age 8. Yeesh. I enjoyed being one of my stake’s baptism coordinators, but I refused to sing that song. Let’s not mess up another generation of little kids!
Another example that LDS ordinances don’t DO anything.
“Well, if it’s just a symbol, to hell with it.” Flannery O’Connor
Marie, thanks for articulating that so perfectly. That’s *exactly* what I learned too. I concluded like you that the celestial kingdom was clearly only for GAs, because there was no way I was ever going to get all my sins repented of, let alone kept track of. And for the same reason, like your sister, I mused a lot about suicide before getting baptized, thinking over and over that if I only had the *courage* to do hard things like I had been taught at church was so important, I’d work out a way to kill myself before I turned eight and give me my only real chance at the celestial kingdom.
I recently stumbled on a commenter on Reddit who’s kept track of how this topic has come up over and over and over, as clearly a lot of people learned this perfectionist view of Mormonism from Kimball, Packer, et al., and reasonably concluded like we did that baptism wasn’t the gateway to exaltation, but rather the gateway to damnation.
Here’s a link to the Reddit list:
Yikes—I’m dismayed (though not terribly surprised) that my sister was not an extreme outlier. And of course we can add Elder Renlund to the list (sort of).