The Doctrine of the Ongoing Restoration

Radiant Beams Above, Holdman Studios

I've noticed a pattern in my people who are born and raised in the Church who deconstruct and end up in this place where they think "there is no one true church" is a kind of heresy.

It's not though.

It's the natural conclusion that belongs to a community that never stops being in a state of continuing revelation. What is considered doctrine today could be thrown out tomorrow. I've been saying it for years, but it's the hardest thing for my LDS born and raised folks to understand: this is not a flaw. It's a feature. It's a very, very good feature. I need you all to embrace it and stop being so afraid of it. We as a community are never truly married to any idea, especially when the idea is bad.

There are very few ideas in our faith that we couldn't and shouldn't take a baseball bat to at a moment's notice. Especially when we suspect they might be bad ideas. If they are true, they will hold up to that kind of treatment. If they are not, we can dispel any illusions and mistaken loyalties. We can move on without regret or consternation.

To lay aside Mormon Primacy and Supremacy is not a failure. It's what maturing in your faith looks like. It's the exact moment when you trade in the structured certainty of youth for the unfettered questioning that adults can and must be comfortable with having. You are in charge of your own theological frameworks and cosmological outlook. Yes, really. The entire foundation you had as a child was preparing you for this moment. That you've rejected the notion that theology is something that must be carefully curated for you is a sign of growth and vitality, not death and decay.

Let me point something out you might not have considered before.

Do you know what is unique about power in the LDS faith?

The idea that it should be shared.

The second Joseph Smith got access to priesthood, what did he do with it? He started ordaining people and spreading it around. He began diluting what could've been the exclusive access to speak for God and act in the name of Christ by freely giving it away to others. Anyone who was willing to listen was given controlling interests and radical autonomy to participate in the Church as an equal with him.

You there! Person who just got here! Serve a mission? Awesome. You there! We have an opening for an apostle. You'll do it? Great! You there! Wanna get baptized? Neato. You're in charge of building the temple.

That process has been streamlined and corporatized in the past 200 years, but that spirit of "We gave you these powers and abilities so you would use them. To do what? Whatever you feel called to do, honestly. There's always tons of work to do. Go make Jesus proud!" is still very much alive and well with us.

You all grow up with this in the air you breathe, then freak out when you arrive at the place of thinking truly anything is possible? That you don't have a monopoly on truth and there are ideas out there it has never occurred to you to think before? I think you forget that this is exactly the person your community has created you to be. This isn't a mistake. It's a logical conclusion, which is why so many of you end up here.

"But the Church leaders say—"

They're going to die and the illusion they had of what the Church is, how it must be, will die with them. In the almost eighteen years I've been here, I don't believe I've ever stepped into the same Church twice. It doesn't belong to them to define and control forever. It never truly did.

"The Church" is a living, breathing thing because we are living and breathing. The Church is us and we are it. You have never once encountered the Church when it wasn't actively changing, where it was finished. The Restoration is ongoing and will be until Jesus Christ returns. There is no status quo to which you must unquestionably yield. In a church of continuing revelation, how can there be?

We are constantly trying to move together into the future without leaving anyone behind. That includes you. It has to include you. And I hate to see that when you are finally arriving at the state of mental and spiritual flexibility to truly be powerful, you think there is something deeply wrong with you. Like you've made a mistake somewhere, and all someone has to do is point it out and you'll be identified as some kind of fraud.

Never forget that Jesus Christ was a man in a perpetual state of faith transition, pleading for those around him to expand their minds to perceive God and the world as they truly are. Never doubt or shame yourself for finally being able to see clearly what others cannot see yet. That doesn't mean there is something wrong with you. It means you are finally in a place to help them see and learn. You are exactly who God wants you to be, where and when he wants you to be there. There is no mistake.

I don't wish to keep anyone in our community who truly doesn't want to be here, who feels they will be best served by leaving. That is not my intention here. I am no apologist. But the fact that this idea specifically, that we are not the only ones to ever be fully capable of serving God, is something I've seen multiple people in my life feel they have to couch in a kind of reticence. Like it makes you broken or unfit as a Mormon for thinking it, and it's something you have to apologize for.

It makes me want to take all 5'1” of my being onto a chair and shout "Says who? Who did this to you? No, really. I want names. Because I need to go remind them that they aren't God and this isn't their church. Their name isn't on the building. And I reject any and all authority they ever held to make you think your belonging here was conditional on their approval or within their control."

The Church is your home, so do what you would do in your home to make it yours. Take your shoes off. Decorate the walls. Spread out your stuff on the floor. Speak freely and openly. Think and wrestle with ideas. Play the music you like. Make a mess. Get yourself a drink and a snack without feeling like you have to ask.

I have it on the best possible authority that if Jesus was here, he would say to you what he has always said to me from the moment I showed up. And it's not because I'm special. You've just never been able to hear it because of the shame that never should've been yours to carry:

"Make yourself at home."