On Christ and Acceptance

O Jersusalem. Greg Olsen, 1995

Everyone has an opinion on Kate Kelly's excommunication, but a man named Greg Trimble wrote something that bothered me in particular.

"Too many people," Trimble says, "are neglecting what is in the scriptures and trying to 'customize Christ'." Trimble then proceeds to, ahem, customize Christ for his own purposes with the story of the adulterous woman in John 8:12, where Christ says "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."

The Savior did not condemn her…but he also didn’t condone what she did. He loved her and He forgave her, but He also meant what He said when He told her to “go and sin no more.” The forgiveness of Christ should not be misinterpreted for acceptance.

But the point of the story is in verse seven, not twelve. Here the Savior tells the Pharisees: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." The Savior saves His harshest rebukes for those who invoke religion against those who suffer, as highlighted here and in the story of Job.

Mormon bloggers love their straw men (/straw women), and Trimble wields them deftly:

Instead of humbly praying for change or speaking individually with family members or church leaders, they assume that they can organize a mob to publicly and forcibly put pressure on apostles of the Lord to customize the gospel of Jesus Christ in their own time, and not in His. Questions are one thing, protesting is another.

Kate Kelly never organized a mob. Or a protest, for that matter. A protest is about opposing something. Ordain Women is asking for inclusion in something--you protest things you think are bad, you ask to be included in things you think are good. (via)

Tribmle's post ends with a bang. I mean, um, an ellipsis into space:

Many people are taking the equality and fairness argument to the extreme, assuming that Jesus is accepting of everyone and everything. It’s just not true according to the scriptures and instead of making rash assumptions and jumping ship, we need to patiently keep our concerns on our spiritual shelf until the Lord reveals His will…

Accusing Mormon progressives of making "rash assumptions" utterly belittles their spirituality. The only sin Kate Kelly is guilty of is acting on opinions that differ from those of Church leadership. (And apparently using the wrong "tone".)

Truth be told, we all customize Christ. How could it be any other way? We come into faith with different personalities, fears, needs. Religion doesn't create these personal paradigms, it lives within them. And the hardest part about the gospel is that we have to accept each other in spite of how different those paradigms are.