I grew up in the Bible Belt of Missouri. From a young age, I was never really pushed to be a member of one particular religion.
Delilah (I don’t call her mom) came from a devout Methodist faith, yet she rarely attended church. I can only remember her going to church on Easter, funerals, and weddings. Her family worshiped money more than God. An ancestor gave the land for the Methodist Church in the town and had it built, and he donated the land across the street for the school and had it built. People in the city knew they were rich and used it to control the town and the people living there. If you wanted land to buy and build your home, you had to purchase it from this family. This family saw themselves as the guardians and servants of God, and to cross them was swift punishment for foreclosing on your house and property.
Why am I mentioning this? When you look at history, more wars and conflicts have been caused because of religion. Like Delilah's ancestors, they used the church and the control that came with it as leverage for the townspeople. They felt that what they did gave them the right to say who and what religion was right in the town.
Ray (I don’t call him Dad) came from a Pentecostal faith. Like Delilah, Ray never attended church, not even on holidays. It was rare for him to attend a wedding or funeral. If it was a funeral, then it was at the funeral home. However, when he was younger, he, his brother, and two sisters played music and would sing at revivals. They had no problem playing gospel music, yet they preferred honky-tonk music. Pentecostals were “holy-rollers,” and the ones I was raised around believed that if you did not worship God by shouting, singing, speaking in tongues, and shouting AMEN a hundred times during a sermon, then you did not fit in.
Delilah insisted my sister and I be baptized Methodist, even though I did not follow that religion. Ray and Delilah felt that once we were baptized, it was “once saved, always saved.” They had no problem visiting other beliefs and would not have minded if we chose to become a member of that faith. There were only four religions we were forbidden to join: Catholics (even though some branches of the family were Catholic), Jewish (parents and family were anti-sematic), Jehovah’s Witness, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
If you are not from Missouri, then you were not taught about the “Mormon War” and the Expulsion and Extermination Law that any Mormon caught in the state, whether it be a man, woman, or child, it was legal to kill them on sight. Mormons were hated, and Ray and Delilah were firm believers in that.
Imagine the horror when I joined the LDS Church. That was fun. :)
I believe all religions have some form of truth, and when you look deep into those religions, you can see the framework. I believe that all religions are right and wrong. That is not fence-riding. We all worship the same God, yet he goes by many different names; he is still God.
People in many religions believe the Holy Bible to be the infallible word of God, but it isn’t. It takes a lot of work, hours of study, prayer, and talking to others who are biblical scholars (until you become one as well) to see what is real and what is not.
One of the “Articles of Faith” in the LDS Church states: “We believe the Holy Bible to be the word of God, as far as it has been translated correctly.” That’s a bold statement because the Holy Bible is not accurate, and this I knew before I became LDS.
Religions start to lose it when they abandon learning what the scriptures say and instead make it the politics of their belief.
Am I still LDS? Yes and no. Even the LDS Church is evolving like other religions are. The teachings of the Gospel are correct, and many Mormons do go deeper into studying the complexities of the scriptures (I did that). Where I differ from the LDS Church and other religions is their passing of judgment upon people. They use the scriptures as their basis for promoting hate and division. You will go to hell if you do not believe as I do.
They use the scriptures as justification to judge others. Only they have the right to tell someone who they can love and who they can marry. They tell you how to live your life. If one of their children is different (LGBTQ+), then they are thrown out of the family, and all ties are cut. They refuse to learn and accept their child for who they are. They harden their hearts and no longer accept that child; even after carrying them for nine months, they no longer exist. This child is dead to them. They perpetuate the hate and deny their existence.
It may have seemed like I wandered from the question. It’s interesting that mainstream religions preach the Love of Christ and yet deny the power of what that love entails.
As many of you may know, I am gay, and I believe in Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. My faith is in them. When I came out as gay after the death of my wife of forty years, I was excommunicated from the Church. That rule changed shortly afterward. Yet there is condemnation in it, which I will not go into. I can be gay and LDS; I cannot have anyone in my life, ever. So I left.
I have a husband today. He is also LDS; however, the church does not know we are married. What they do not know is none of their business. That’s where the politics come in. It's a long story, and this is long enough.
Of course, this is all of my opinion.
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