Teaching salvation by grace as an unbeliever

[Reuben]

Today, the best label for my beliefs is "Christian agnostic atheist." Who knows what it'll be tomorrow?

The "Christian" part has been pretty stable. Even though my Mormon upbringing was light on Jesus, I find his example and teachings compelling. One reason is that I see them as an antidote to authoritarianism and tribalism, which I think are the two aspects of human nature most likely to destroy us all and everything we've built.

I came to the jarring realization a couple of months ago that a vital part of the antidote is something I don't really believe in: grace. To be more precise, I believe in humans practicing self-compassion and self-forgiveness and extending the same grace to others. I don't believe in the need for God to extend grace to humans, but for people who believe in God this seems to be more or less equivalent to the grace I do believe in.

I think believing in either secular or religious grace is essential for liberation from religious social control. I'm sure most of us have been caught up before in the endless cycle of sin, shame and repentance that burdens believers and entangles them in their religions. I was until I discovered religious grace years ago. Grace allowed me to stop judging myself, stop judging others, stop worrying about institutional judgment, disbelieve the bullshit claim that personal purity has anything to do with blessings from God, disbelieve in Satan, think of unbelievers as equals, let go of certainty, wonder whether Mormonism had lost its way in following the gospel of Jesus Christ, question other Mormon truth claims, and finally get angry with God long enough to question whether Mormon doctrine about something as basic as God was true. It couldn't be true, so I fell.

Finding grace made me happier and mentally healthier in the church, and ultimately allowed me to find more truth and freedom out of it - though the latter came with profound grief. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Also, as my vicar friend said to me last week, you can't be remade without first getting nailed to a cross.

Anyway, I've now given a Family Home Evening lesson on salvation by grace to my believing family. Critically, my wife was on board, having walked down the path of grace with me years ago. I started by giving my belief label of the day ("agnostic Christian") and finding common ground with my kids. Then we talked about three distinct doctrines of salvation taught in the LDS church.

Here's how the whiteboard ended up:



(The drawings on the bottom are from my youngest daughter dealing with math angst the next day.)

These three doctrines of salvation differ primarily in what's required to be saved. All are taught in the LDS church, sometimes by the same speaker in the same talk. It's really confusing. Others are taught, but IMO these are the most representative. The first one is salvation by grace. Each doctrine is unnamed (I didn't want to dignify the second two with names), and listed with where it's taught, what's required for salvation, when salvation happens, and worries related to it.

Points I made sure to cover:

• In the BoM, salvation means instant and total purity before God, as soon as you ask and are willing to keep the commandments. (Its consistency on this point is shocking.) Salvation is taught similarly in the New Testament - I think the biggest exception is the epistle of James.
• I gave them answers to the question, "If you're saved by grace, why would you do anything good?" by listing it as a worry. Also, it's the only question in the worry column with actual answers (in red). The other two questions in that column are unanswerable, leading to a lifetime of anxiety.
• I grew up with doctrine #3, moved to #2, and then to grace. I talked about how the others had partly caused depression once.
• I said this: "All three of these doctrines of salvation are taught in the scriptures and in church, and they can't all be true together, which means we get to choose one. Which do you think would be healthiest for our family?"
• Of these three doctrines of salvation, grace is taught least often at church.

Reactions:

• DW loved it.
• DD1 (18) was initially apprehensive because I was teaching. She was surprised that other doctrines besides salvation by grace are taught. I think she picked up on discussions between me and DW years ago when we were discovering it, which her younger siblings missed out on. She then filtered out everything she heard that didn't support salvation by grace.
• DS1 (16) appreciated having the confusing discourse at church finally sorted out. (He's a very logical thinker.) I think he also might have started feeling a little salty about having to refrain from passing and taking the sacrament over P&M last year, too.
• DD2 (13) said her mind is now blown. She also appreciated having the confusing discourse sorted out.
• DD3 (11) is probably too young to understand the significance of the entire discussion.

Things I did differently than I would have done as a believer:

• I didn't try to reconcile all of the doctrines because I find no reason to try to make every GA correct. The closest we got was DW bringing up grace-affirming or grace-neutral ways to understand supporting scriptures for the non-grace doctrines.
• I requested that my family choose the healthiest one. I would have presented them as personal options before, or only taught salvation by grace.
• I classified GAs by the doctrines they seem to believe in. Uchtdorf plainly believes in grace. Holland seems to vacillate between grace and #2. Eyring is probably #2. Oaks and Nelson seem to be hardline #3.
• I mentioned that worthiness interviews are most consistent with doctrine #3.

[Palerider]

Regarding your "when clean" section in the Grace column:

I know of very few, even in the church, who are willing to venture as far as explaining the meaning and order of Justification and Sanctification. But they aren't really that difficult to understand.

When we accept Christ and receive a witness of Him and a willingness to have faith in Him and his teachings, we become "Justified" before him. Justified in the sense that we are making a sincere, good faith effort to keep His commandments and although we aren't utterly clean or perfectly spiritually healthy, we are accepted by Him even in our imperfection.

The rest of our lives are a process of Sanctification through His Spirit. As we make the effort to overcome the world, the Spirit strengthens and aids our resolve. We become more pure. But, paraphrasing Paul, "there are some sins that are not unto death." In other words, God knows the sincerity of our hearts and the limits of our earthly tabernacles. He knows "perfection" in all of it's glory is beyond us in this life. But we have the promise of it in the next. Thus we are extended his "Grace".

The thing that Mormons fear and dread is that people will continue loving sin while at the same time expecting to be saved by Grace in the end. But that's really an impossiblity. The conscience of anyone who has sincere faith in Christ won't allow them to accept such a stupid teaching or doctrine. Who could honestly believe, after reading the New Testament that God is o.k. with people continuing in sin?

Still, Grace is actually something that we don't earn in the sense that He owes it to us like a wage. We recieve it through the merits of Christ. Because of His perfect obedience. His work. Our works only serve as a manifestion of our faith in Him and our heart's desire to help our fellowman. In that sense Faith without works IS dead.

There is also a difference between works in the "service" sense and the works of "ordinances". These ordinance works are what the church relies on to enslave members.

In Old Testament times, "blood sacrifice" was one of the ordinances of the day. But those ordinances were useless and had no saving power in and of themselves. As Christ said, "I desire Mercy, not sacrifice...."

Ordinances are only symbols of a great sacrifice that would actually free mankind from sin. In and of themselves the are nothing but earthly busy work. In the LDS faith they are evolved gnostic rituals that serve no one.

I'm reminded here of Hagoth and his method of home teaching. Which do we think the Lord would prefer, going to the temple to perform dead works for the dead or taking a loaf of bread to a family in need?

With one, earthly leadership can declare you are "righteous". With the other only God will know how righteous you are and a living family will be thankful for you.

[Reuben]

Thanks for the cool details, Palerider.

Weirdly enough, I already knew about justification vs. sanctification. I can't for the life of me remember where I learned it, or whether the BoM uses the terms consistently. (I know it uses the terms.) I've explained it before in the context of salvation by grace, and I'm happy to report that I got it right.

If I had remembered the distinction before the FHE lesson, I don't think I would have made it. Justified or sanctified, your sins shouldn't weigh you down, and nobody should be able to try to shut you out of God's presence or shame you into submission. If God regards you as perfect (even though you're not), who is some dude to say otherwise? Who are you to say otherwise, for that matter? You're free. That's the main point I wanted to make.

[Corsair]

I love the table you made showing three operating theories of grace. The anti-math doodles on the bottom simply add the to the charm.

I recently have been reading a history of the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther would approve, as far as my reading seems to indicate. Luther was certainly a fan of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. By the Holy Bible alone and by faith alone comprised Luther's assertion of grace in the face of the Roman Catholic religious hierarchy. This is an excellent rhetorical antidote to the religious tyranny of of men who claim to have inspired authority over you.

I suppose I should add the other three Solas established with the many of the 16th century reformers. This includes:

• Sola Gratia (“grace alone”): We are saved by the grace of God alone,
• Solus Christus (“Christ alone”): Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King.
• Soli Deo Gloria (“to the glory of God alone”): We live for the glory of God alone.

This is taken from The Five Solas - Points From The Past That Should Matter To You

If this wasn't so darned Protestant then the LDS church could embrace this model for the Grace of God, but it instantly precludes just about everything that Joseph Smith stood for.

[Palerider]

If this wasn't so darned Protestant then the LDS church could embrace this model for the Grace of God, but it instantly precludes just about everything that Joseph Smith stood for.

Joseph, being a product of his time.....do you think he could have been influenced by the principles of a free democratic republic and free enterprise? Where ideally men are promoted by competency or "merit" rather than by "patronage"?

This principle had been so strongly espoused by the Founding Fathers (and with good reason), that I wonder if Joseph wasn't so thoroughly indoctrinated by it that he couldn't see God operating any other way?

It's a great concept for an earthly system.

But in an economy where all are highly valued but ALL are incompetent compared to God and he being the only entity capable of bringing about salvation....what other principle could really operate other than Grace???

Salvation HAS to be freely given because no human has the capacity to pay for it, demand it or produce it. Only by the Eternal demands of justice that are internal to God, is it required and accomplished.

And then we see the need by Joseph for a hierarchy of kingdoms and glories. A celestial meritocracy where instead of "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory", we have "wherefore give me thine honor."

Whenever I hear about how righteous the general authorities of the church are I think, "Compared to who?"