The Only Sin Worse Than Murder

          A couple weeks ago, I read “The Girls From Fourth Ward” by Donna Banta.  The book was a dark romp into the world of teenaged Mormon girls, complete with the bishop from hell.  One of the scenes that lingered in my mind was a conversation between the four girls about the consequences of leaving the Mormon church.  Mormon theology teaches that the only sin worse than murder is renouncing the teachings of the church.  In the mixed-up minds of these four teenaged girls, this teaching somehow justified the murder of a bishop who was acting as an obstacle to fulfilling their potential as ideal Mormon women (and achieving access to the highest level of Heaven).  This example is extreme and one that I hope is relegated to the pages of fiction.  But the conversation in this book brought up very painful memories of just how afraid I was when I began questioning my faith.  

          When I was sixteen, and my faith was just beginning to crack, the missionaries were asked to teach my Sunday School class for a week.  Being the missionaries, they decided to use the opportunity to show off their knowledge of the Gospel.  We were treated to an overview of the Gospel and the three-fold mission of the Church: perfect the saints, preach the Gospel to the world, and redeem the dead.

          Then the missionaries started talking about the levels of heaven.  I grew up learning about the Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial Kingdoms but I had heard very little about Outer Darkness, which was a fate too awful for my mind to even comprehend.

          “Don’t worry.” the missionaries assured my class.  “It’s almost impossible to get sent to Outer Darkness.  You have to either kill someone or renounce the teachings of the Church.  And even murder is forgivable in some situations.”

          Uh oh.  I sat there on my hard plastic chair, painfully aware that I was in the process of committing the only sin worse than murder.  The only sin that meant irrevocable exile to Outer Darkness.  I felt as though I had been punched in the gut.  The rest of the day was a blur as I mulled over the lesson and all of its implications on my life.  

          I was upset for a while.  Upset and terrified.  But as the lesson began to sink in, I began to get angry.  Really angry.  Boiling, red-hot anger that started at the top of my head and crawled its way down my body.  I knew that what I was doing -- asking questions of my religion and expecting rational answers -- was not a sin.  The fact that I had received no answer, the fact that logic dictated that there could be no proof, did not mean that I was a bad human being.  And yet, as part of Mormon Church, this sin of mine was worse than killing another human being.  I began to see the Church in a different light; I could no longer rationalize its goodness.

          I reached my limit that day.  I was tired; tired of feeling like I was less faithful, less worthy, simply because the answers I had received were not the “correct” answers.  This lesson tipped the balance from grief about my lack of faith to anger at an unforgiving authoritarian religion.  This anger gave me the courage to start my journey out of Mormonism, as I began to untangle the many threads woven throughout my up-bringing.  A year after this lesson, I made a permanent break with the church.  I am grateful that I managed to find the courage to break away, even while faced with the threat of absolute damnation.  But for every person that does manage to come to terms with their lack of belief, there are ten more that stay because they are too afraid to commit the one sin worse than murder.  

Testimony Meeting: Fake It 'Til You Make It

“We gain or strengthen a testimony by bearing it.”¹  

Dallin H. Oaks, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  

          In the Mormon church, every first Sunday of the month is fast and testimony meeting.  Members are expected to abstain from food and drink.  During sacrament meeting, in lieu of prepared talks, the service is devoted to members standing up and professing their faith in the Church.  

          As a kid, I always dreaded fast and testimony meetings.  Sacrament meeting seemed even longer than normal, as the majority of the hour was marred by uncomfortable silences, punctuated by the occasional member that would feel pressured into standing up to break the monotony.  Later, during Sunday School, all I could think about was the grumbling in my stomach.  We usually had another, smaller testimony meeting among our peers, so that we could practice saying them in front of others.  

          We were taught that the best way to strengthen our testimony was by bearing it.  I did my best to follow that advice, in spite of my reticence about public demonstrations of faith.  The dissident in me always thought of Matthews 6:5 --- “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street, that they may be seen by others.”  But the admonition to bear your testimony often was a directive from the General Authorities, so I tried my best to be a good Mormon girl.  

          Testimonies usually fell into a pattern --- the member would talk about some trial in their life and then say how the Lord had answered their prayers.  Then the member would finish by saying --- “I know this Church is the one true Church.  I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that Jesus died for our sins.”  Or something along those lines.  But the testimonies were more exceptional for what they didn’t say.  In all the testimonies I heard over the years --- and there were thousands of them --- I can count on one hand the number of times I heard members admitting to having unresolved doubts about the truth of the Church.   Having doubts and questioning the gospel was acceptable, as long as you arrived at the correct conclusion of “The Church is true.”  

          I always felt very uncomfortable bearing my testimony.  I thought that the Mormon church was true.  I believed that the Mormon Church was true.  But there was an intense pressure within the Church to say that you knew the Mormon Church was true.  You knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the Mormon church was true.  And the rational part of my mind knew that the fact of knowing was impossible.  But I had been raised to place complete faith in the authorities and so I too stood up and said “I know this Church is true.”  And in so doing, I contributed to an environment in which members felt alone in their doubts.  

¹http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/04/testimony?lang=eng