Why So Many Latter-day Saints Are Leaving The Church Over The LGBTQ Movement

It feels like every other week someone on my social media feed is announcing they are leaving the Church over their LGBTQ stance. Almost everyone cites love as their motivating factor. And I think they are right, it is love that leads people out of the Church. But, it is Terrestrial love.

Nearly 2000 years ago Christ taught the Golden Rule: “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” (Luke 6:31) That has been the gold standard for love ever since (pun intended). But in 1996, a mere year after the Family Proclamation was given, a new love was introduced: The Platinum Rule. Rather than doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, the Platinum Rule declares that we should do unto others as THEY would have done unto them.

At first, this sounds like an improvement! It combines empathy with the Golden Rule. But, do the words of Christ need improvement? Anytime someone seeks to mingle the philosophies of men with scriptures it should be a massive red flag. I believe that the Platinum Rule is the reason why so many Latter-day Saints are leaving the Church.

The Platinum Rule teaches that we need to learn of people, ‘hear their story,’ read their books and blogs, listen to their podcasts, and attempt to love them in the manner and mode that they say is love. The Platinum Rule teaches us a Terrestrial version of love and encourages us to use that rather than the Celestial Love that Christ commands us to have (more on Celestial love in a minute).

Terrestrial Love Leads to Apostasy.

Terrestrial love leads us to apostasy from Christ. It is, after all, the attempt of men to improve upon the teachings of Christ to start with! But how it leads to apostasy is something we are all witnessing in the Church. Terrestrial love leads us to accept and affirm the lifestyle choices of others. Acceptance and affirming lead to advocacy. Advocacy leads to activism. And activism leads to apostasy.

Accepting and Affirming.

When we have Terrestrial love, we seek to ‘understand’ why someone is doing what they are doing, IE, “their experiences” but more than that (because understanding is not bad), Terrestrial love then asks them what can I do to show love to you? It does not want to merely know what members with same-sex attraction experience, it asks them, “How can I show love to you?”

For many in the LGBTQ community, the answer is simple: accept and affirm me. Terrestrial love’s acceptance and affirmation lead many Saints to hoist pride flags, march in parades, and make posts on social media about how they love and accept everyone. But it never stops there.

Advocacy.

When guided by Terrestrial love, our acceptance and affirmation will eventually lead to advocacy of lifestyles. The more you attempt to implement the Platinum Rule, the more you will hear people’s stories about how they feel hurt by doctrines like the Family Proclamation. Recently, I was in a Sunday lesson about loving LBGTQ individuals when we were told, “Don’t talk about the Family Proclamation, they don’t need to hear it.” This really took me back. But looking on Social Media I see this statement repeated. This is a perfect example of Terrestrial love, they don’t like a gospel doctrine, so we advocate filtering the gospel for them. We have been warned about this by Elder Scott D. Whiting, “We must be careful that in our efforts to love our neighbor we don’t begin advocating against the Lord.”

This is typically where pushback starts to happen within the Church. It is one thing for someone to hoist a pride flag, it is another to say, “Don’t teach the doctrines of the Church.” When pushback happens, they cite that Jesus repeatedly taught us to love everyone. They mingle the philosophies of men with scriptures, and unfortunately, it is being received very well by some within the Church. This is also one of the reasons so many people were mad at Jeffrey R. Holland when he gave his ‘infamous’ BYU address where he denounced this type of love when he said, “We have to be careful that love and empathy do not get interpreted as condoning and advocacy or that orthodoxy and loyalty to principle not be interpreted as unkindness or disloyalty to people. As near as I can tell, Christ never once withheld His love from anyone, but He also never once said to anyone, ‘“’Because I love you, you are exempt from keeping my commandments.’ We are tasked with trying to strike that same sensitive, demanding balance in our lives.”

Advocacy in the Church often starts out small. It starts with comments on social media sites or in classes advocating for filtering the gospel. When people refuse to filter the gospel they are labeled unloving. Elder Scott D. Whiting also addressed this when he said, “Some, in their efforts to love others, feel it necessary to abandon the teachings and commandments of God or to advocate for a change of His doctrine. But to love God is to accept His teachings, commandments, and doctrine.”

Activism

But the problem with advocacy, attempting to convince others to love with Terrestrial love, is that it does not deceive those who know the doctrine. Those who know the doctrine know that we are to love others AS Christ loves them. With Celestial Love. They know that love is not supporting self-destructive behavior. Those who know doctrine are not deceived by the Platinum Rule and Terrestrial love, they realize this is the philosophies of men with scriptures and reject it.

Advocacy turns into activism when we go from trying to change the minds of individuals to attempting to change the Church itself. To paraphrase Dr. John A. Widtsoe, a former member of the Quorum of the Twelve, “The [activist in the Church] is usually one who has broken with the fundamental principles or guiding philosophy of the group to which he belongs. … He claims membership in an organization but does not believe in its basic concepts; and sets out to reform it by changing its foundations.” (Improvement Era, vol. 44 [1941], p. 609)

The first step of activism towards the Church (ATC) is an attempt to destroy something that is currently in place, like the Family Proclamation. ATC focuses on alleged mistakes Church leaders have made in the past, or policy changes and cite that as precedence to changing our doctrine.

Elder Ahmad S. Corbitt warned about ATC in a recent address at the Conference Center, he said that there is an “especially effective tactic Satan is using to blind and mislead the young, those transitioning from other religious traditions and cultures, and even longtime and lifetime members of the Lord’s restored Church … our enemy’s effort to transform disciples of Jesus Christ into activists toward or against the Lord’s Church and its leaders.” (watch the full speech below).

Apostasy

Activism towards the Church always leads to apostasy. This is because once members of the Church become critical of the leaders, they start ignoring them. The thread that binds us to the Church of God is our willingness to follow the Prophet. ATC cuts that thread. In the words of Brigham Young, “You cannot destroy the appointment of a prophet of God, but you can cut the thread that binds you to the prophet of God, and sink yourselves to hell” (as quoted by Harold B. Lee, Conference Report Apr. 1963, page 81)

What starts as simply trying to “love” others, but with a Terrestrial form of love, leads to forbidden paths. It leads to broken covenants and eventual apostasy. This is a real-life scenario that is all too familiar in the Church today. In the words of Nephi, “and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.” (2 Ne. 28:21.)

Celestial Love

It is clear to anyone that has listened to any teachings of Christ that love is a central theme of His message. But it is not any type of love. He specifically tells us that we are to love as He loved us. IE, our love should be Godlike, or Celestial in nature. The whole Christian experience is about developing Celestial attributes. Rather than attempting to improve upon Christ’s teachings, Latter-day Saints should seek to follow them and develop Celestial love.

Developing Celestial love requires that we keep the first commandment first. Because the byproduct of keeping the first commandment is being filled with God’s love, and as Joseph Smith taught, “Love is one of the chief characteristics of Deity, and ought to be manifested by those who aspire to be the sons of God. A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, chapter 37).

It is only when we are filled with Celestial love, that we are able to live the second great commandment, to love our neighbor as ourselves. As Heber J. Grant put it, “The best way in the world to show our love for our neighbor is to go forth and proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Conference Report, Apr. 1927, page 176)

When we follow the Platinum Rule, we are inverting the two great commandments. Attempting to love our neighbor before we are filled with Celestial Love, (IE without loving and obeying God), will lead us to love our neighbor with a lesser form of love. It also pushes us to the point that we love our neighbor more than we love God and pulls us away from His church. Once again, we were warned about this by Elder Scott D. Whiting, who said: “Those who invert the two put themselves and their neighbors ahead of the Lord, their Master Teacher, and seek to counsel Him and His called leaders. Please guard against this increasingly popular and potentially spiritually fatal deception by remembering that sometimes the best way to love your neighbor is actually to advocate and stand for the teachings of the Master.”

Why Celestial Love?

Why is Celestial love so important? Because when we love others with Terrestrial love, we are basically substituting ourselves for Christ. We are in effect telling Christ, “I know your teachings (Golden Rule), but I think my ideas (Platinum Rule) are better.” We are afraid that those who need to feel love won’t feel love if we follow Christ and teach His gospel. So instead, we stand as an alternative to Christ and His love, and God’s plan, and offer our love, and our plan as we attempt to “make sure” others feel loved. This is especially hard for women. Who, by their divine nature, are more empathetic. They desire to help people feel loved, and Satan can manipulate that desire to invert the two great commandments. I have seen many a “mama dragon” leaving the Church over a child who experiences same-sex attraction or gender confusion/dysphoria.

When we love others as Christ would love them, we help them feel Christ’s love. We are a conduit for Christ to touch our friends and family. We understand that feeling love is a personal choice and that we cannot make anyone ‘feel loved.’ And in fact, loving them with Celestial love often will get us labeled as “unloving” by the world. When we are filled with Celestial love, we are not worried about what the world thinks. Instead, we focus on what Christ thinks of us. We focus on asking ourselves, “What would Jesus do? How would Jesus respond to this situation?” That is the guiding principle for disciples of Christ.

Could you imagine someone who smells of smoke walking into Church and Christ running up to them and telling them “I have big tobacco flags at my house, and I march in the big tobacco parade every year! That is how you know I don’t judge you and that I love you!!” Neither can I. Apply the same to pride flags and parades.

NOTE: Christ would also not walk up to that person and tell him he is unwelcomed and/or treat him poorly because of their actions. Everything Christ does is to beckon others to “Come, Follow Me.” That includes when he says, “Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.” That too should be our goal, to live a life that introduces our friends to Christ’s love so they too can hear Him Say, “Go and sin no more, come, follow Me!”

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