Following the Prophet is about ME not YOU.

Last week President Nelson asked us not refer to ourselves as Mormons anymore. I felt that this was a call to repentance. That is how I personally felt, I know thousands of others have felt the same way, but this charge to do better has revealed an ugly undercurrent within our culture. The need to shame and call out those who we view as not following the Prophet.

What am I talking about? Members all over social media are being Pharisees and calling others to repentance and attacking them on Facebook they are trying to shame others into obeying the Prophet’s guidance on dropping the terms LDS and Mormon. Here is the deal. Repentance is about ME, not YOU. When we are called to repentance on a topic it is not our job to go around to our neighbors and persecute them for the very thing that we were doing yesterday!

Think of the irony that many members are so eggar to defend the Prophet and the Church that they offense Jesus Christ by how they treat their fellow man.  Remember, your actions declare with a much louder force than your voice who you are. You can proclaim you are a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint until you are blue in the face and it is worth nothing if your actions don’t validate those words.

I’ve seen hundreds of messages full of animosity and breathing out threats “I’ll unfollow this page unless you change your name immediately!” or “This is apostasy!” or any verity of messages attacking another because they are not following the Prophet as you think they should. Fun fact. Many of these people can’t just change their name. See, if your page is big Facebook does not allow you to just change the name of your site without a ton of effort and appeals. This is one of the reasons why Mormon Newsroom is still Mormon Newsroom on Facebook. So be patient with others.

But this is exposing a bigger problem. Our culture is extremely judgmental and self-righteous. This problem did not start last week with the name correction but rather was exposed in all of its nasty filth. For some reason, we think if we are living X commandment that gives us the moral authority to judge someone who is not living it as a lesser disciple than we are. (Story of the two debtors comes to mind). Here is the deal. We don’t have any right to judge another. Even if we know they are wrong. That is the job of Jesus Christ. Guess what He tells us to do? LOVE THEM.

The job of their Priesthood leaders is to call them to repentance if they need to be called to it.  When we go around exalting ourselves to the role of judge and becoming an offender for the word. Truly we have “strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” As we forsake Christ by our actions and like the Pharisees on the Sabbath try to execute the law upon others.

Unless your calling is to be a common judge in Isreal we have no right to judge another! So we must ask ourselves a question: Who am I to judge another when I walk imperfectly? Jesus Christ earned the right to judge (and delegate judgment) by virtue of His atonement. If he has not delegated power to us, how arrogant and more offensive in the eyes of God is our self-righteousness of assuming the role of a judge than is the sin we are condemning? Do we really equate ourselves and our qualification with that of Jesus Christ to judge? Rather than judge another let us love another, rather than be concerned if you are following the prophet, let us be concerned if we are following him!