About 20 years ago an acquaintance of mine shared on an online Mormon forum about his last time being asked to substitute teach Gospel Doctrine class.
When the class arrived, he already had a list of “attributes” on the board. He asked the class (in typical leading -question fashion they were all accustom to) to indicate whether each of the items on the board applied to Mormons. The list included
- A separatist religious group
- Strict observers of God’s law
- Eschewers of Gentile practices
- Belief in immortality and physical resurrection
- Belief in spirits
- Belief in the existence of angels (divine messengers)
- Recognize authority of oral law (modern revelation) as well as the written law
- Hold specific prescribed ceremonies and commandments to be central to faith
- Encourage self-sufficiency and spiritual pride (self worth)
- A major obstacle to the acceptance of Jesus Christ
As you might expect, the first nine items were accepted as descriptive of Mormons with relatively little discussion. And as you would expect, vehement denials arose on number ten. My friend then revealed that the entire list came straight from the LDS Bible Dictionary entry for “Pharisees”, and that the class should be mindful not assume that the Church today could fall into the same trap as they did.
To quote from the post: “All help broke loose. Some started shouting at me while others left the room, presumably to run to the bishop. I couldn’t help but remark to a sympathetic friend in the room: “Now isn’t this so typical of how Pharisees reacted when confronted them with their sins?”
He was permanently enjoined from teaching anything because of complaints the bishop received, although the bishop agreed with him and grumbled about the complainers, he said he was taking the peaceful way out of the dilemma
So what do you think, are we Mormons Pharisees? I’m sure most Evangelicals would even agree with Number 10, that Mormons are a major obstacle in accepting Christ!
Painting is “Christ Escapes the Pharisees” by Fredrich Overbeck
Wheat & Tares 
Yes!
Your acquaintance is an excellent and wise teacher. Those are the type of lessons we all need for self reflection and self improvement. Thank you for my Sunday school lesson today.
This sent me on a internet search where i learned that the majority of the content of the LDS Bible Dictionary is identical to the Cambridge publication. Monson/McConkie/Packer and Robert Matthews headed a LDS committe that gained permission from Cambridge University Press to use their bible dictionary as the template for the LDS version
it reminds me so much about my deep dives into the early history of the church and how Joseph adopted/borrowed from other groups and claimed it as his own revelation. The church is not claiming this 100% about the LDS Bible dictionary, but we were taught when it came out in 1979, that all these resources were inspired and available for only the true church. Does that come from the unpaid untrained teacher or an institution with a correlated manual? As a youth when I was bored in a class I would fumble through the LDS dictionary self learning. Now I know more about it’s origin. Thanks BBill.
When I watched ( under protest) The Chosen, I was struck by how much the behavior of the pharisees resembled today’s Chosen Path emphasis….especially the policing of all aspects of our lives.
Are we Pharisees?
I would say yes.
I’ve felt for some number of years we worship the Church—the “true” Church.
God and Jesus are but bit players in our services.
Lois,
Yes!
Very inciteful question and summation, BB. My compliments. Without a doubt, “the Church’s” current leadership and many of the members are most definitely Pharisees!. Christ IS NOT our core focus….it’s “the Church”; and protecting it at all costs – which has become “the one Great God”.
We may not be Pharisees with a capital p, only because we aren’t Jewish, but as a group those in the LDS tradition certainly appear to be pharisaical (marked by hypocritical censorious self-righteousness) and we practice pharisaism or in some dictionaries phariseeism (hypocritical observance of the letter of religious or moral law without regard for the spirit; sanctimoniousness). It seems to permeate our culture. I’ll add another element that isn’t in the OP’s list of ten, probably because this element isn’t in the Bible Dictionary, but I think fits: judgment with hostility and contempt towards people who don’t agree with them or who don’t think the “right” or approved way on any number of topics.
For some 20 years now I have been calling the church the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Pharisees. It makes my believing husband angry, but the way the church puts rules above the well being of members makes me angry. The specific rule that drove me out of the church was the insistence that there was NO valid reason to stop wearing garments, even if they made you physically sick or caused you such emotional distress you because suicidal. Nope, just have faith that God will fix the problem if you are obedient. But God didn’t just erase the issue, and being forced in the name of God only made me hate a God who doesn’t give a s*** about me and the issues He allowed me to be stuck with.
We as a church really put the rules and obedience above love. Ask most member of the church what is the first law of Heaven and they will Telly you obedience. No, the first and great commandment is love and on that hang all the rest. We should not obey God because He is God and more powerful than us and can smack us down if we don’t obey. That is slavery. We should obey God because we know He loves us and will not ask us to do anything that is harmful to us. And if the church asks us to do something that is harmful to ourselves or someone we love, then that doesn’t come from God. Garments, if they are harmful, then the commandment doesn’t come from God, but men. Polygamy, it is harmful to women directly, but also harmful to children because then they really only have one parent. And it is harmful to men because it destroys their wives ability to love them, and they end up respected, but not loved by much of anyone. So, because it is harmful, you know it doesn’t come from God.
Jesus criticized the Pharacees because their hyperfocus on all the laws was harmful in that they were forgetting the greater law to love. We as a church are doing exactly the same thing now.
I often point out that the church is an idol to itself. This is a good exercise that helps people realize why that is true. It is one of the main reasons I stopped attending.
Your friend’s bishop handled this issue in the worst possible way. By taking the path of least resistance, he legitimized the ward pharisees.
It is frustrating to see this happen at all leadership levels. All it does is excuse the pious members from any obligation to listen and consider other viewpoints.
Unfortunately, the majority of these orthodox Mormons will waltz to the polls and blithely vote straight Republican. All in the name of rejecting the use of their intellect.
Well, when we are taught from the pulpit of the great and spacious conference center that obedience is the first law of heaven, yet obedience isn’t quite enough, we need EXACT obedience, then, yeah, we’re getting lost in the letter of the law, as those particular religious leaders of old.
Yes. I had pretty much this exact conversation with my spouse not too long ago.
At church, I hear a lot about obedience, and rules that we are supposed to obey, but I don’t hear too much about the teachings of Christ. In my experience, item #10 applies to the church/temple- it can be an obstacle in accepting Christ and following his teachings. I want to follow the teachings of Christ, but holy cow it’s hard, (and I think it is made harder when I’m focusing on obedience to church rules).
Thank you, Anna! My new name for the Church!
The Bible dictionary taps into an antisemitic tradition within Christianity. The Pharisees were not quite what we have been taught:
https://www.ncronline.org/culture/book-reviews/scholars-outline-history-pharisees-and-roots-harmful-anti-jewish-stereotypes
The bishop in “Benediction” (by Neal Chandler) held out longer than this bishop.
As a TBM I am insanely grateful that I’ve been able to learn something about love by loving the people in my life. And I’m confident that the vast majority of active latter-day saints — who value obedience — would agree that the love they have for the Lord and their fellow beings is the greatest of all virtues.
I think we sometimes apply the duck test to swans without knowing the difference between the two.
I am also a TBM, and it saddens me to agree that I have also noticed some symptoms of pharisaical behavior among us, maybe even increasing over time. I wish it wasn’t so. But isn’t acknowledging the existence of a problem the first step to addressing it?
Jack – while I agree with you that the people in the church are largely good, well-intentioned people, like many people of this earth, the problem isn’t the quality of people, it’s the emphasis of message. The “Covenant path” is a meme that mostly defines righteousness by way of religious observance. How many times have you heard “love” as the central theme of the covenant path?
Yesterday, I went to church and two different members climbed the rameumpton stand to tell us how they attended other churches and how much better our church is and how wrong these other churches are. I find it very disappointing that so much of our testimony is that we are right and others are wrong.
Imagine if nonmembers were present, as they should be if we were actually a missionary church. But our disdain for others is constantly present, and the only way we can feel good about ourselves apparently, is to cut down other traditions publicly. I consider the men who did this good friends and it was disappointing to see where they are in their spiritual development.
Yes, and the Rameumpton is also in effect every first Sunday of the month.
Sure, we’re Pharisees. The higher we are in church leadership, at least on the ward level, the more we are like them. We also have many of the same traits as the Sadducees when someone goes even higher in church leadership. But a member with a leadership position in government, you see even most Sadducee tendencies.
Pharisees are more everyday rigid members who view the church and others through a pious lens and push it on their fellow members. Sadducees have a bit of power and use it to impose their views using their power. It could be laws banning books or transgender affirmations or outlawing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices at state colleges and universities. It could also be putting laws in place to allow vouchers in education to pay for religious education or justifying not taking Federal Medicaid money for children’s summer lunches because it’s a family responsibility and not the state’s.
Do members see it? I guess some do because they are here in Wheat and Tares talking about it, but I’d say most don’t because it’s not part of LDS culture to be introspective and apply lessons from yesterday to today.
There are Pharisees aplenty at every level of church membership and a sprinkling of Christians across the board “because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way… and few there be that find it.”
Remember that the Pharisees in Jesus’ day thought of themselves as good — they considered themselves as righteous and protecting truth. They couldn’t see things differently, or the way Jesus saw things.
I listen to a podcast called “Secular Buddhism” with host Noah Rasheta. He is a former LDS member, very sensible and not at all antagonistic towards the church but has chosen a different spiritual path. He begins every podcast with a line I wish would inform our LDS culture. He says, “You don’t need to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a better Buddhist. You can use what you learn to simply be a better whatever you already are”. I wish we would gather and make the point of our religious commitment about being better humans, creating better family and community relationships, rather than being better Mormons.
I am still a regular weekly attending member, but like most here, am fairly unorthodox in the way I view my relationship with the church. I stay because I see “community” as the central message of Jesus, supported by our idea about building Zion. I was recently called to be 1st councilor in a new Bishopric and by far the hardest part for me (that feels like an understatement) is asking the temple recommend questions. Outside of not sleeping with other people’s spouses and being honest, none of the other 12 questions have anything to do with being a better whatever you already are. The questions are dedicated to creating people who are faithful to the institution, propping up its image, loyal even if it doesn’t make sense, and assenting to propositional claims that not only lack evidence, but have clear evidence to the contrary, as opposed to embodying the core teachings of Jesus. The Pharisaical element is the part where we constantly confuse means and ends.
One’s worthiness is a matter of answering, do you agree with us on our doctrinal positions? Are you a good Mormon? Are you someone that won’t embarrass the church? All of these seem to be cut straight from the Pharisaical cloth. And by Pharisaical, I don’t think it’s useful to think of them as horrible, wicked people, but instead as the clear and present danger of our lower natured humanity high jacking religion as just another way to look righteous without actually having to be.
I remember around 2015 the church re-emphasized a focus on the Sabbath and the message was that leaders were not going to tell the members what is a good or not good Sabbath day activity and the members need to figure it out. Then about two years ago the church updated the FSY pamphlet to make it more standards-based rather than rules-based. In both of these instance the message I heard from the pews was that the members craved a list-based approach and if the church wouldn’t provide one they would just go back to the old FSY pamphlet. As a result, teens still don’t date until 16, dress standards are mostly unchanged, etc.
That being said, when the church preaches good and bad lists your entire life then suddenly changes that approach, the members are in no position to undertake a standards-based approach as they don’t have the tools to live this way. To wit, this is why so many post-members really struggle to moderate choices they make when leaving. The church says it’s because these post-members are sinners and wickedness never was happiness but really it’s because the church failed them.
I personally see all the rules and lists (if you don’t believe me go ask for the the YW camp invite) and a group of good people missing the mark. It makes me sad.
There are times when I think that many in Church leadership have mistakenly read the 10th Article of Faith as “the earth will be renewed and receive its Pharisaical glory.”
The emphasis on obedience, the wink-and-nod (and even more explicit statements) at the “unwritten order of things,” the Law of Moses-esque nature of so much of the leadership’s rhetoric and discourse, and the ubiquitous box-checking approach taken by too many members at every level all suggest a Pharisaical bent to LDS teachings and practice. In an effort to create D&C 132’s “house of order,” the Church has effectively abandoned the “teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves” (aka standards-based) concept and instead embraced the perspective that everything should be approached from the “weakest of these” vantage point, which results in commanding its adherents in all things.
It is too bad, of course, since the Law of Moses (and, implicitly, its approach to spirituality) was fulfilled by the Savior and the gospel He taught was supposed to replace the rules and lists with simpler concepts.
Re: The Covenant Path:
When we take the sacrament we witness that we are willing to take the Savior’s name upon ourselves, always remember him, and keep his commandments. Interestingly the there is nothing mentioned about love in the sacrament prayers. Even so, if we try to keep the commitments we make when we take the sacrament the Lord blesses us with his spirit–and the first fruit of the spirit is love!
That said, the above pattern applies to the whole of the covenant path. No one should be counted a Pharisee for sincerely trying to follow the path the Savior marked at every step. What other way shall we go? Only he has the words of eternal life.
“No one should be counted a Pharisee for sincerely trying to follow the path the Savior marked at every step.”
And no one is. Really, no one is counted a Pharisee for sincerely trying to follow the path the Savior marked at every step.
Jack, no one is counted a Pharisee for following the Lord’s path. One becomes as a Pharisee for pointing thr finger at another, for judgment and criticism and fault finding, for considering oneself superior, for making rules upon rules and placing them on other people’s shoulders, and for exalting obedience to those rules above love to one’s fellowman. If you think that this does not describe many of the Saints in Zion, then perhaps you are blind, and Jesus called the Pharisees blind and blind guides. Our church, as a whole, and particularly in Zion, or the Mormon corridor, seems to me to be particularly judgmental and critical, and this ought not be so. We, as a people, do exhibit a number of pharaisical traits, and to deny it , and to say we are all holy, is another trait of the Pharisees, generally speaking. I am faithful and attend every week and hold a calling, and I think that, as a people (and this doesn’t mean all members) look and act too much like Pharisees.
Jack –
To always have his spirit to be we us – keeping God’s spirit alive in the world, is it a reward for good behavior or is it an expression of a sacred trust God is asking our participation in? If we read God’s covenant with Abraham carefully, we would have to admit that our current version is horribly backwards.
We have moralized the whole project by suggesting that the only thing that matters is whether you are a moral person. Paul echoes the words of Jesus by placing emphasis on our vocation. We were called to be image bearers of God.
Even our Sacrament prayers, if we read them carefully, suggest just how difficult it is to keep something alive that is not physically present. To always remember him, keep his commandments, that we will always have his spirit to be with us is routinely read as carrot and stick. IF we do something God will give us his spirit. This entirely misses the point. Hence the words of the preacher in Ecclesiastes 9:5, where he is lamenting how meaningless life appears to be, we live, we die, and are quickly forgotten. In other words, our spirit fails to live on because the people still living fail to continue bearing the image of the dead.
God’s spirit is made alive in the world through us, we are the image bearers, faith without works is dead, why? Because spirit is like the wind, unseen and undetected accept by its effects. Spirit is always seeking embodiment, something that will manifest its quality and essence into the world. So, to always have his spirit to be with us, is not the reward for “remembering” and “commandment keeping”, those things are describing how God’s spirit is made manifest in the world. Spirit flows “from” those actions, not as a reward for them. Spirit, like the air we breathe, is a gift, it’s everywhere always. The air no more belongs to me than to you, it’s not a scarce commodity we are competing for our trying to earn, but the abundant life-giving force we take for granted because it is so familiar. Our vocation, like Simba in the Lion King, is to remember who we are, remember that God lives “in us”, and to have his spirit is to take our place in the circle of life, to show up and bear the image of divinity.
toddsmithson et al,
I’m happy for people to enter the covenant for the best reason they can come up with. And because the Lord is gracious–if people strive to live up to the covenant for the best reasons they can come up with he’ll bless them with a portion of his spirit. And it is by receiving his spirit–typically grace for grace–that we become transformed. And as we become transformed–over time–we become more like the Savior. And in becoming more like the Savior we find ourselves being motivated more and more by love–until one day we are perfect in his love.
And so the long and short of it is: we need to do what Lord asks us to do–regardless of how naive our understanding may be of the theological underpinnings of his commandments. Perhaps my view is overly pragmatic–but faith is more often premised on a willingness to do (IMO) than adopting a frame of mind.
Jack, You make a pretty good point. Whatever reason people choose to follow the path is good, and we should do what it takes to help them to follow it. Honestly, I think God should just force people to enter the covenant and live up to it because then they would receive his spirit… and eventually become perfect in his love. Not one soul would be lost!
“Honestly, I think God should just force people to enter the covenant and live up to it because then they would receive his spirit…”
Then *they* wouldn’t be doing it for the best reason that *they* can come up with. I understand that you’re being cheeky–but let me just add: the Lord wants people to learn how to love him out of the desires of their own hearts. But here’s the conundrum: how many of us automatically love God enough to be entrusted with the inheritance that he wishes to give us? We must be transformed before that can happen. And that implies a need for growth on our part–which further implies that we are likely to enter the program he has in place for us as spiritual babes.
So let’s be careful how we judge those who are trying to keep the commandments for the best reasons that can come up with.
“How many of us automatically love God enough to be entrusted with the inheritance that He wishes to give us? We must be transformed before that can happen. And that implies a need for growth on our part – which further implies that we are likely to enter the program He has in place for us as spiritual babes.” – Jack (Divine Formatting provided by me).
I view the 2 Great Commandments as that “failsafe” – we cannot always love God (for reasons). We can “repent” aka “change” aka “transform” ourselves by learning to love our neighbors. CAVEAT: The transformation will not happen as much if “our neighbors” are “just like us”.
In the tug-of-war between “Purity Culture” and “self-improvement through sanctification” and “LovingKindess/Charity” and “self-improvement through empathy and creating safe and sacred spaces with others”, I believe that “Charity Never Faileth”. I choose to believe that “our spiritual nursery” for our safe toddlerdom is “with others on the playground”.