Don’t let the nicknames of the “Mormon Church” or “Mormons” or “Mormonism” confuse you. For all that we use those terms here (because we know these nicknames are used often…and we know the name of the church seems long!), we also believe that name is extremely significant. Sacred, even. As M. Russell Ballard recently taught in the October 2011 General Conference of the church, we believe that

The Lord Jesus Christ knew how important it was to clearly name His Church in these latter days. In the 115th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, He Himself named the Church: “For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (verse 4).

Elder Ballard’s talk explains how each part of this name is significant, and because of that, rather than being a long name, it’s actually a “descriptive overview of what the Church is…wonderfully brief, candid, and straightforward. How could any description be more direct and clear and yet expressed in such few words?”

“The” — We believe this Church is the restored Church of Jesus Christ. 

“Church of Jesus Christ” – we believe Jesus Christ is the head of this church

“of Latter-day” expands on our belief regarding the restoration — that the church of Jesus Christ existed anciently, but then there was a falling away, necessitating the bringing back, or restoration, of truths, authority, ordinances necessary as part of the Savior’s church

“Saints” — saints in ancient times were simply members of Jesus’ church, disciples of Jesus, people trying to follow Him and testify of Him

Jesus Christ really is the center of all we do. We pray in His name, perform ordinances by His authority, remember Him and His atoning sacrifice in our ordinances, preach of Him, testify of Him. The Book of Mormon is another testament or witness of Him. It helps us understand all the more why the Savior is so essential in our lives and in God’s plan.

So in all of this “Mormon Moment” media attention, please remember what we really are about by remembering the Church’s full name. We are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Joseph Smith taught that spirit is a finer form of matter. Which made no sense to me.

But a Christian scholar trying to make sense of Mormonism for his Christian audience has explained the belief in a way that I can finally comprehend.

The most significant difference is that Mormons believe that Jesus Christ was never purely immaterial. Smith developed his materialistic interpretation of the spiritual realm mainly after the Book of Mormon, but it is anticipated in that book’s most extraordinary scene. In an appearance to the unnamed brother of Jared, Jesus is so sensitive to the overwhelming impression of his corporeal form that he reveals only his little finger. Jared’s brother says, “I saw the finger of the Lord, and I feared lest he should smite me; for I knew not that the Lord had flesh and blood” (Ether 3:8). Later Jesus shows Jared’s brother his whole body, which, it turns out, is a pre-mortal spirit body, comprised of a finer material substance than anything known on earth.

Christianity has always affirmed the goodness of matter and the integrity of the human body, but Mormonism offers that Christian dogma gone mad. For Smith, Christ’s pre-existent form was as physically real as we are today. Christianity teaches that the incarnation happened in a particular place and time, but for Smith, taking Hebrews 13:8 (“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”) very literally, the Son has always been Jesus. The body of Jesus Christ is the eternal image of all bodies, spiritual and physical alike. The incarnation is a specification (or material intensification) of his body, not the first and only time that God and matter unite.

The eternal embodiment of the divine is metaphysically audacious, and it explains why Mormonism is so inventive. Mormon metaphysics is Christian metaphysics minus Origen and Augustine—in other words, Christianity divorced from Plato. Mormons are so materialistic that they insist that the same unchanging laws govern both the natural and the supernatural. They also deny the virgin birth, since their materialism leads them to speculate that Jesus is literally begotten by the immortal Father rather than conceived by the Holy Spirit.

By treating the spiritual as a dimension of the material, Smith overcomes every trace of dualism between this world and the next. Matter is perfectible because it is one of the perfections of the divine.

That is beautiful. That is powerful. I still may not wholly accept that spirit is just a finer form of matter, but I can now understand what someone could mean by it. I can at least grasp and even admire the possibility.

The whole essay is well worth your while. It’s a model of real tolerance, which requires real differences and real attempts at understanding.

A member of the Church has created a YouTube channel Understanding Mormonism, where he has posted several videos that explain Mormon beliefs in a simple, authentic way. You may be interested in sharing these videos with your friends.

First video: Introduction

Blacks and the Priesthood

Mountain Meadows Massacre

A Mormon Talks about Jesus Christ

Here is my amazing insight that has never occurred to anyone before. The folks in Genesis were more than a little shady. And by the folks in Genesis I mean Jacob. Yes, its a different cultural context. Yes, each individual sketchy episode can be explained. Or at least you can make up additional facts not actually in the scriptures that would provide an explanation, if they were true. But with Jacob, sketchy episode piled on top of sketchy episode, you start to wonder if maybe its not just a coincidence. Maybe the guy himself was sketchy. Not only did he bribe his brother for his birthright and cheat his father out of Esau’s blessing, he also engaged in a little magic to cheat his father-in-law out of the good flocks. Jacob was a cheat and a deceiver.

Yet God blessed him. Why?

It could be that Jacob had some pretty sweet redeeming qualities. It could also be that God blessed Jacob to fulfill the promises made to righteous Abraham and faithful Isaac. In other words, it could be that Jacob’s blessings were at least partly unearned.* The scriptures come right out and say that Isaac was blessed for Abraham’s sake, that Laban was blessed for Jacob’s sake, that Sodom and Gomorrah would have been spared, not for their own merit, but for the sake of a handful of the righteous, and even that Abraham’s righteousness would bless all the nations of the earth. Jacob was probably also blessed for the sake of his fathers and of his seed.

Jacob’s children shared his faults. Like him, they quarreled with their brothers. Like him, they deceived to improve their own position. You can find about a dozen examples of each in scripture, including the famous episode where most of Jacob’s son hucked his favorite son Joseph into a pit then lied to their father about it.

*Arguably no blessings are actually earned, because the blessings we receive are out of proportion to the good we do, and because the good we do is itself a gift from God already. But in the sense that God promises blessings in return for certain acts or commitments on our part, it does not abuse the language to say that we have earned those blessings by doing the acts or making the commitments. These quarrelsome and deceptive traits haunted Israel from generation to generation. Though we’d like to blame Jacob for it, he didn’t totally originate these faults himself. Both his father and his grandfather passed off their wives as sisters at times; Abraham blatantly deceived Isaac about the sacrifice on Mt. Moriah; and Abraham with Isaac and Ishmael and Isaac with Jacob and Esau both appear to have done little to discourage and much to encourage sibling strife. Just as its difficult to pin down precisely who earned the great blessings that Jacob received, we find in the scriptures that there is a great load of wickedness floating around with no one certainly and uniquely to blame.

The scriptures that say that God curses and blesses the children for their fathers’ iniquity, unto the fourth generation are not unjust. Or rather, they are unjust, but the injustice isn’t God’s arbitrary command. The injustice is the inherent injustice of a world with more than one person in it. The scriptures say that Eve brought about the Fall because as long as there was only one person in the garden, no injustice could be done. The good that Adam did would accrue to himself and no other, the evil he did likewise. In fact, Eve plainly tells Adam after she takes the fruit the deprivation he will suffer because of her choice regardless of what he chooses to do. Can it be a coincidence that in LDS belief the act of disobedience that brought consequences to Adam unjustly was also the act that made having children possible? There is something profound in the LDS belief that the Fall and having children were inseparably connected. As we can see from scripture and our own experience, families and injustice are inseparable.

But as we also see from the scriptures and from our own experience, the injustice is not always against us. We get blessings we do not merit, happiness we don’t deserve, and the wild joy of making other people happy because we wanted them to be, not because they earned it.

And, as a consequence of the Fall, we get the ultimate injustice, Christ’s atonement. I sometimes wonder if the object of the Atonement is to entwine Christ so closely in each mortal life that the hopeless task of weighing out the fault of the good and evil of each mortal life becomes even more hopeless, such that the judge of nations decides to exonerate us with Christ, since Christ must be exonerated. I sometimes wonder if all the evil we do may not be so interconnected down the generations and up the generations and across relationships that each sin is our own fault but also in a way the fault of everyone, so that Christ, who participated fully in the web of humanity but never committed evil, may be *literally* said to have overcome the Fall.

I don’t have full answers to these questions yet. I havent’ even figured out exactly what the questions are. But I do know that unearned blessings and unearned cursings are inherent in the idea of families and a key to understanding the atonement. I know that Mormonism’s emphasis on family is not just a nice afterthought to the core message of Christianity but an inevitable complement and reflection of it.

Being parents is just what they always wanted. And they love it.

“Of course we have our crazy moments,” Thompson says, “but for the most part we just try to find the good things in the day and remember that they’re only going to be little for so long.”

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Thompsons believe that maintaining a strong marriage and raising and teaching children are essential keys to happiness and their most important responsibilities on earth.

In fact, 81 percent of Mormons say being a good parent is “one of the most important things in life,” according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life — the first survey of Mormons about Mormons, by a non-LDS research organization.

The survey of more than 1,000 self-identified Latter-day Saints from across the country asked how accepted Mormons feel in American culture, as well as their thoughts on religious practices, political issues and family roles.

The survey showed that Mormons are more likely to be married than the general population, 67 percent of the sample size compared to 52 percent of the general public.

And 85 percent of married Mormons married other Mormons. Protestants marry other Protestants 81 percent of the time and Catholics marry each other 78 percent of the time.

With an emphasis on marriage, it should come as no surprise that the Mormons surveyed also had, on average, more children (2.6) than the general U.S. population (1.8).

Thompson grew up wanting to have a large family and be a good mother, but she and her husband have struggled with infertility for nearly nine years — a trial punctuated by the joys of two different adoptions, Ellie, then the twins.

“We said when we finally get to be parents, we’re going to actually sit down and take a little more time to focus on our kids,” Thompson said, who lives in northern Utah. “I’m not saying that other people don’t do that — the perspective we have is just a little different.”

Other Latter-day Saints share the Thompson’s enthusiasm to put family first.

“Family is at the core of our faith,” says Jane Clayson Johnson, a Latter-day Saint and former anchor of CBS’s “The Early Show” who prefers the title of mom to two young children and stepmom to three older ones. “There are so many distractions today that all force us outward, away from core relationships. What our faith does is turn us back toward deep, rich, meaningful relationships in families.”

“It teaches us that families are where we find meaning,” continued Clayson from her home in Boston. “The work I do in my family is the most important work that I’ll ever do.”

Among the general public, 50 percent list being a good parent as “one of the most important things in life,” with 44 percent listing it as “very important but not most important.”

That shouldn’t be taken to mean that the average American doesn’t value marriage or family, just that they don’t “go to church every week and get told that’s what they’re supposed to do,” says Marie Cornwall, a professor of sociology at Brigham Young University. Cornwall advised the Pew Center for this survey.

“There’s nothing to suggest that family life is less valued in the United States over time,” she said, “but there’s more that suggests that people are feeling like it’s not possible for them to attain that.”

The pressure comes when a “successful” marriage is defined as having a good job, a hefty retirement account and a lovely home with a white picket fence, Cornwall said. So when people can’t achieve that in today’s tough economy, many feel like they’ve failed.

“For Mormons, there’s a spiritual aspect brought to that (definition of success),” she said, “an effort, in terms of sermons, to try and downplay the material and place more emphasis on the relationships.”

When the survey asked Mormons about working arrangements in families, nearly six out of 10 Mormons indicated they would prefer a marriage where the man works and the woman stays home to care for the home and the children.

LDS college graduates liked this marital structure more than any other subgroup, with 71 percent of them preferring the man to work and the woman to stay home.

In the general population, only 30 percent of Americans would prefer a marriage where the husband works and the wife stays home. Among religiously unaffiliated Americans, it drops to 15 percent who would pick such a scenario.

Almost four-in-10 Mormons would prefer that both parents work and both parents help with child rearing and housework.

For American Fork mom Ruth Ann Dupaix, 37, it’s not a black-or-white decision. Throughout her marriage she has both worked and stayed at home.

“The way we look at it, we try to make it a partnership,” Dupaix says. “It’s more who’s able at the time to do it best. It’s working together, a give and take.”

When she and her husband, Geoff, were first married, her job helped pay for his school. When he finished, she kept working because her employer would pay for her to complete her degree, and education was important to both of them.

Dupaix stopped working when her sixth child was born but has recently gone back to work at a local grocery store three nights a week to help fulfill a family goal to reduce their debt load.

It’s a big pay cut from the job she used to have at a bank, but it’s a more family friendly schedule.

“As part of a family you make sacrifices,” she said. “I’m gone when the kids are asleep, but I’m still here during the day when they need me.”

Additional Resources:

For original source Deseret News article: Mormon family marriage focus Pew.

Mormons in America Pew Study.

As the “Mormon moment” extends into 2012, the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life today released a groundbreaking new survey, the first ever published by a non-LDS research organization to focus exclusively on members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their beliefs, values, perceptions and political preferences.

Entitled “Mormons in America: Certain in Their Beliefs, Uncertain of Their Place in Society,” the survey was conducted between Oct. 25 and Nov. 16, 2011 among a national sample of 1,019 respondents who identified themselves as Mormons. The results validate a number of long-held stereotypes (most American Mormons are white, well-educated, politically conservative and religiously observant) while providing a few interesting surprises (care for the poor and needy is high on the list of LDS priorities, while drinking coffee and watching R-rated movies aren’t as taboo among the rank and file as you might think).

“While this survey comes amid a contentious election campaign, it is not solely or even chiefly about politics,” said Luis Lugo, Pew Research Center director, in the published survey’s preface. “Rather, we hope that it will contribute to a broader public understanding of Mormons and Mormonism at a time of great interest in both.”

For example, in one very interesting section of the new survey, respondents were asked several questions about what is essential to being a good Mormon. According to the survey, 80 percent said “believing Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ” is essential to being a good Mormon, 73 percent said “working to help the poor,” 51 percent said “regular Family Home Evenings,” 49 percent said “not drinking coffee and tea” and 32 percent said “not watching R-rated movies.

“To be honest, I found the strong sentiment that ‘working to help the poor’ is essential to being a good Mormon refreshing and a little surprising,” said David Campbell, an LDS Church member who is an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame and who consulted with the Pew Research Center on the new survey. “As a Mormon, I would hope it would be that way, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s good to see the church’s genuine compassion for the poor and needy reflected in these numbers.”

People outside the church may or may not be aware of the LDS propensity for compassionate service and other . According to the survey, 62 percent of Mormons think that Americans are generally uninformed about Mormonism, and 68 percent feel that they are not viewed as part of mainstream American society. But they remain optimistic, with 63 percent expressing the belief that Mormonism will eventually become part of mainstream society and 56 percent saying that the American people are ready for a Mormon president.

In fact, optimism is one of the themes to emerge from the survey relative to Latter-day Saints. Some 87 percent say they are satisfied with the way things are going in their own life, and 92 percent say their respective communities are excellent (52 percent) or good (40 percent) places to live (this is especially true among Mormons in Utah, of whom 71 percent say their communities are excellent).

But evidently, optimism only goes so far with Mormons.

“I think it is interesting that the respondents are overwhelmingly positive about their communities. They love their communities and everything’s fine there,” said Marie Cornwall, professor of sociology at Brigham Young University and another advisor to the Pew Research Center on this study. “But when you ask them about the way things are going in the country today, they are overwhelmingly (75 percent) dissatisfied. You would think that their satisfaction with their personal lives would factor into their feelings about how things are going in the country, but there seems to be a total disconnect there.”

It should be noted that the Mormon view of how things are going in the country today closely resembles the view of the American public as a whole, among whom 78 percent said they were dissatisfied in an October 2011 Pew Research Center survey.

Generally speaking, the new survey looks at Mormons and their perspectives in four key areas: politics and ideology, religious beliefs and practices, cultural and moral issues and family life.

Politically, there are few surprises. Most Mormons (66 percent) describe themselves as politically conservative, and 74 percent of Mormon voters identify with or lean toward the Republican Party. Philosophically, 75 percent of respondents said they prefer a smaller government providing fewer services to a bigger government providing more services.

Among a number of politicians currently in the spotlight, Mitt Romney is a favorite, being viewed favorably by 86 percent of all Mormons and 94 percent of Mormon Republicans. Even among Mormon Democrats, 62 percent rate Romney favorably.

The other Mormon running for president, Jon Huntsman, is viewed favorably by 50 percent of Mormon voters, while President Barack Obama is viewed favorably by 25 percent — slightly ahead of the rating Mormons bestowed upon another one of their own: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (22 percent).

Interestingly, Latter-day Saints seem to be somewhat divided on the issue of immigration. They are fairly evenly split on whether immigrants strengthen the U.S. because of their hard work and talents (45 percent) or burden the U.S. by taking American jobs, housing and health care (41 percent).

Campbell, who is an expert in the field of religion, politics and civic engagement, said he wasn’t surprised by that result.

“Although Mormons are caricatured as being really right wing, on the issue of immigration they are not,” he said. “The church itself has been quite a voice of moderation on this issue, and that has resulted in Mormons being more positive toward immigrants than other conservative religious groups tend to be.”

Campbell suggests that the LDS Church’s missionary program has something to do with that, with Latter-day Saints tending to develop a broader worldview as a result of their missionary service around the world. In any event, he said, “this result really does cut against the stereotype.”

In terms of religious beliefs and practices, the survey makes it clear that Mormons are highly religious — again, not a big surprise. Eighty-two percent say that religion is very important in their lives, and 77 percent say they believe wholeheartedly in all of the church’s teachings. Fully 83 percent say they pray every day, 79 percent say they donate 10 percent of their earnings to the church in tithing and 77 percent say they attend church at least once a week. According to Pew, “Mormons exhibit higher levels of religious commitment than many other religious groups, including white evangelical Protestants.”

Looking at basic, core religious beliefs, 98 percent say they believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 94 percent believe the president of the LDS Church is a prophet of God, 95 percent believe that families can be bound together eternally in temple ceremonies, 94 percent believe that God the Father and Jesus Christ are separate, physical beings and 91 percent believe that the Book of Mormon was written by ancient prophets.

Clearly, Mormons are believers.

But are they Christian? Ninety-seven percent of Mormons think so. And when asked to volunteer the one word that best describes Mormons, the most common responses were “Christian” and “Christ-centered.” By way of contrast, a November Pew Research Center survey found that nearly half (49 percent) of non-Mormon U.S. adults say that Mormonism is NOT Christian or that they are unsure whether or not it is Christian. In that same survey, when respondents were asked for one word that best describes the LDS Church, the most commonly offered response was “cult.”

Culturally, Mormon conservatism extends to a wide variety of moral issues. Polygamy (86 percent), sex between unmarried adults (79 percent), abortion (74 percent) and drinking alcohol (54 percent) are viewed as morally wrong. Divorce, on the other hand, is largely considered “not a moral issue” by respondents (46 percent).

Similarly, 65 percent of respondents said that homosexuality should be discouraged by society, compared with 58 percent of the general public who say homosexuality should be accepted by society.

“Mormons like to use the phrase, ‘Be in the world but not of the world,’” Campbell noted. “They are active and involved in their communities, but they have these beliefs and practices that set them apart a little bit, and sometimes that creates conflict or tension. [Homosexuality] is one of those issues where, rightly or wrongly, Mormons just have a different position than most of the rest of America.”

The survey also illustrates how important family life is to most members of the LDS Church. Among life’s priorities, being a good parent (81 percent) and having a successful marriage (73 percent) place higher than career concerns, having free time or even living a religious life. Some 67 percent of Mormon adults are married (compared with 52 percent of the general public), and 85 percent of them are married to another Mormon.

“As the Church and its members are increasingly the focus of media attention, we’re eager to participate in conversations that help the public get to know us better,” said LDS Church spokesman Michael Purdy. “Even though the recent Pew study did not survey any of the Church’s eight million members who live outside the U.S., it highlights some important aspects regarding who we are and what we believe.

“For example,” Purdy continued, “the study found that Church members subscribe to traditional Christian beliefs, have high moral standards, are overwhelmingly satisfied with their lives and communities, are active in serving others and have a profound dedication to family. These results reflect the Church’s message that a deep commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ brings lasting happiness.”

Speaking for the Pew Research Center, Lugo said the idea for the survey was born last summer, “around the time that a Newsweek cover story and a New York Times article declared that the United States was experiencing a ‘Mormon moment.’”

“That got us thinking,” Lugo said in the survey’s preface.

Over the years, numerous polls have gauged public attitudes toward Mormons, who make up about 2 percent of all U.S. adults. But what do Mormons think about their place in American life? With the rising prominence of members of the LDS Church in politics, popular culture and the media, do Mormons feel more secure and accepted in American society? What do they think about other religions? What do they believe, how do they practice their faith and what do they see as essential to being a good Mormon and to leading a good life?

An advisory panel was recruited to help the Pew Forum staff create the survey. The panel featured a number of Latter-day Saints who have professional experience in Mormon studies and research, including Campbell, Cornwall, Matthew Bowman of Hampden-Sydney College, Terryl Givens of the University of Richmond and Allison Pond of the Deseret News.

“We helped them to formulate the questions, and to frame them in the kind of language that Mormons use,” Campbell said.

After a period of testing, the survey was conducted among respondents who identified themselves as Mormons (it also included qualifying questions that made it clear that respondents were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as opposed to other churches whose members may refer to themselves as Mormons).

“Since Mormons represent about 2 percent of the population, you’d have to call 98 people before you’d get a Mormon, and that would be very expensive,” said Cornwall, who is also editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. “But they had a fancy way of finding Mormons, including going back to Mormons they had found in the course of doing previous surveys, so they were able to get their sample in a cost-effective way.”

Care was also taken to make sure the survey included those who had land lines as well as those who have only cell phones — a growing area of concern among those who conduct public opinion research today.

• 71 percent of respondents reside in the American West, including 53 percent who live in the Mountain states and 34 percent who live in Utah;

• 88 percent are white, 7 percent Hispanic, 1 percent black and 4 percent other racial and ethnic backgrounds;

• 50 percent say that evangelical Christians are generally unfriendly to Mormons;

• 54 percent say that the way their religion is portrayed on television and in movies hurts society’s image of Mormons;

Pew Study on Mormons in America

• 57 percent of Mormons said that most or all of their close friends are other Mormons (this number was significantly higher in Utah, where the number climbed to 73 percent);

• 65 percent of respondents say they hold a current temple recommend;

• 27 percent say they believe in yoga not just as exercise but as a spiritual practice;

• 11 percent say they believe in reincarnation;

• 74 percent were raised in the LDS Church;

• 59 percent of converts cite the church’s beliefs as the main reason they joined the church;

• 59 percent of converts joined the church between the ages of 18 and 35;

• 27 percent have served a full-time mission, including 43 percent of men and 11 percent of women;

• 82 percent say they have a supply of food in storage, and 58 percent keep at least a three-month supply.

The margin of error for the survey is =/- 4.5 percentage points.

“I think this survey is a really good summary of the hyper-committed Mormon community that shows up at church every week,” Cornwall said. “I’m not sure it captures Mormons on the margins very well, but that’s OK — hopefully we can do that the next time. Meanwhile, this is a pretty good picture — and an interesting picture — of Mormons

By Joseph Walker, Deseret News

Additional Resources:

Full original source Deseret News article: Pew Study on Mormons in America.

Learn more about the results of this survey of Mormons in America.

See infographic from the Deseret News article.

Pew Mormon Study Highlights Christianity.

Previously, the American courts have recognized that the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom and bar against establishing religions prevents the state from interfering with a church’s choice of its ministers and religious authorities. This principle was called the “ministerial exception.” Under the ministerial exception, I can’t sue if I’m passed over for my ward’s next bishopric, even if I think I was passed over because I’m old, or disabled, or a minority, or female, or gay.

The Obama Administration wanted to abolish the ministerial exception.

In a county where religion is increasingly excluded from the public square and where private religious liberty is under attack, the Obama administration’s defeat is a major defensive victory. While some Mormon liberals may have been excited at the prospect of US marshalls forcing the liberal viewpoint on the Church at gunpoint, anyone sane, anyone with any commitment to the Kingdom, and anyone with any commitment to the US Constitution (not to mention the US marshalls) hoped and prayed that the state was kept from interfering with religious life in this way.

Both BYU and the Church filed amicus briefs. The Church’s brief was a joint production with the Catholics, Episcopalians, and Orthodox Jews.

You can find some good discussion at the Mirror of Justice and Bench Memos.

You can read a related case involving the Church here.

If past years are any indicator, most Mormons won’t keep their resolve. Our stake will not meet most of our detailed statistical goals any more than we’ve met our less detailed statistical goals in years past. (The Ballard quote can’t be found in any published source. If genuine, it uses striking rhetoric only to remind us that God is concerned even with the minutia of our lives and willing to give direction about it.) The main lesson our Bishopric learned from last year was that they got discouraged too easily when they expected results from their efforts.

Goals don’t really work.

For some perspective, imagine God doing New Year’s resolutions, which is ludicrous. How many pounds does the enthroned Godhead need to lose, or how much do they need to brush up on their hometeaching? What God proposes to do, He does. He has no weaknesses.

And yet. God does have a failed goal from last year, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. He didn’t almost reach the goal. He didn’t halfway reach the goal. His failure was on so large in scope that it can only be called divine.

Will He renew the goal this year? I doubt it not. I also don’t doubt that He will fail anew this year.

Setting goals and resolves and metrics for the year may be one of the holiest and most God-like things we do all year, when we inevitably fail to meet them.

After working through this line of thought this weekend, I saw that the Gently Hew Stone blog had already anticipated it. Read the post here.

I can’t end better than by quoting the scripture that’s the centerpiece of the Gently Hew Stone post:

“But what could I have done more in my vineyard? Have I slackened mine hand, that I have not nourished it? Nay, I have nourished it, and I have digged about it, and I have pruned it, and I have dunged it; and I have stretched forth mine hand almost all the day long, and the end draweth nigh.”

Jacob 5:47.

The problem with New Year’s resolutions turns out to be the problem of the Fall. All goals lead to Golgotha.

Mormonism, Visualized (mormonvis.com) is an interesting website created by an individual that takes basic LDS doctrines and presents them in an infographic format. It addresses the following topics:

• Who is God?
• Before you were born
• The Atonement
• Prophets
• Joseph Smith
• The Book of Mormon

Can you think of a friend who could benefit from this site?