When I started writing the post Unity, Peace, and Love, I actually had another point I intended to make. As often happens when I write, my point got sidetracked (I hope by the Spirit) and I ended up going a completely different direction than originally intended. The point I was sidetracked from, I still liked, and think is important, so I decided to write it anyway. Hopefully the Spirit will guide this post as well.
In Unity, Peace, and Love I talked about a video that shocked me, the video of someone strutting up to a rameumptom to pray. The idea of a follower of God shoving people out of his way to pray was so bizarre to me. I wrote in the aforementioned post what I think ended up being a better point about this. But what really came to mind the first time I watched that video is how corrupt religion can become if people don’t know who they worship.
In my original post about the rameumpton, I wrote about the God a friend of mine knew. His God was vengeful, exclusive, and selective. This friend believed that I was going to hell despite my best efforts. I assured that friend that I believed he was going to heaven. Do I worship a different God?
Let me be clear, I believe we’re all trying to worship the same God. I don’t mean to make the same argument that many Christians make against members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that I’m not Christian because I don’t worship the same Jesus Christ. Just because we have different understandings of the person doesn’t completely diminish our worship. My efforts in worshiping Christ, even if others deem it a “different” or “inaccurate” Jesus Christ, is still worship.
The problem comes when our understanding of who we worship completely alters our understanding and our behavior. The idea that someone could shove someone on their way to prayer was so bizarre to me. But what if the God someone understands has no body, passions, and is unknowable? What if someone thinks God is a selective and vengeful God that needs to be feared?Why not shove someone on their way to prayer? This shoving behavior isn’t as bad as a God who destroys people on a whim, a God who sent us here so 99% of us could be damned to eternal torment. Surely shoving someone isn’t that bad if our example is that God.
I wrote the above before I finished Alma chapter 21 so I’d forgotten about the next part about the Zoramites, their rameumptom, and their recited prayer.
Verse 15 of chapter 21, after the depiction of a Zoramite shoving someone out of his way on his way to prayer, reads:
“Holy, holy God; we believe that thou art God, and we believe that thou art holy, and that thou wast a spirit, and that thou art a spirit, and that thou wilt be a spirit forever.”
Interesting their beliefs line up with my thinking about how not knowing God corrupts our behaviors not only religiously, but in life. Here we have a recited prayer and the confusion on God’s character destroying a society.
The culmination of the Zoramites corruption was not in their recited prayers or confusion in God, though. The culmination is found in verse 16 which reads:
“Holy God, we believe that thou has separated us from our brethren; and we do not believe in the tradition of our brethren, which was handed down to them by the childishness of their fathers; but we believe that thou has elected us to be thy holy children; and also thou has made it known unto us that there shall be no Christ” (emphasis added).
All their confusion, twisting of doctrine, and beliefs ultimately led to a denial of Christ. We will know the modern religions have truly fallen when they stop believing in He who keeps this all together.
In an April 2023 General Conference talk, Mark A. Bragg reminded us of the Joseph Smith quote, “If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves.”
This is where modern revelation and especially the Lectures on Faith (See here, here, and especially here for more on those) becomes so important. We must understand the character of perfection and love that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ possess so that we can aspire to those characteristics. An unknowable God gives us an unknowable standard. Knowing God is perfect love, and we can do our best to be like Him, gives us the ability to do our best to emulate His love.
