Organized Religion

For some reason organized religion has come up a lot in my conversations lately.

So now I am going to use my allotted time today to talk about why organized religion is a bitter-sweet, struggle-solution, deterrent-enticement.

I feel like God is sending me a bunch of people who have problems with organized religion because that's exactly what I've struggle with for about a year and a half now. God is clever.

Organized religion is great because it's constructive, organized and efficient. Jesus, himself, appreciated order. Imagine all the ways Christ could have come to share His love with the world. He could have been a good deed doer, a voice of reason and a miracle worker and that would have been enough, right? But there was something else He decided to do during His short time on earth and that was to call 12 apostles, give them His priesthood and establish His church. Why do that? To give order and to organize. The apostles He called did not earn their positions nor did they deserve them but He called them and they followed. What a beautiful idea. The only reason they were apostles is because He called them and they followed. Through this organization Jesus showed us the proper way to be baptized, worship His and God and follow the prophets that He called and still calls today.

Organized religion is a not great thing because it breeds corruption. Organized anything does, really. When something is organized it means that there are different sections, categories or assignments and when human differentiate they tend to segregate or find it their place to create castes. I have yet to see an organization that defies this. Because we are human we love to label and we love to categorize. Where there are different categories there are different levels of power.  In religion it can be as simple as "sinner" or "saint". Anyone is a religion that worships God knows that He is the supreme judge but when we all get together and into each other's lives we... forget that. As I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the majority of my experience is in this faith.

I will we short and discrete because what I've seen is not really important, I just want to make it clear that this idea didn't come out of nowhere. I've had experiences of my own and in the lives of my friends I see people who mistreat others (and sometimes in BIG ways) and then glory in their diligent church attendance, bask in the light of their temple recommend or raise the bar on their righteous-o-meter by fasting even more often than is asked of a member of the church (how impressive?). Through my struggles of coming to know who God is I've found a loving Father in Heaven who is happy for us if we take advantage of things like church on Sunday, fasting and prayer but sees through the facade if at the end of the day you can't treat another human being with honesty and dignity. None of us is perfect at this but if the problem is on-going then maybe it's time for some self-reflection.

Now, for my favorite conversation about organized religion that I've had lately. It was with one of my coworkers with whom I love talking about religion because it's always a conversation of respect and toleration for the other's views. Just really healthy sharing of ideas.  He is non-denominational christian and the other day we were talking about the nature of God and people and got on the topic of organized religion and how it can quickly become selfish and corrupt. Knowing some about my faith he asked "and what about men who go to the temple to become their own god?"

Honestly, this was one of those experiences where my passion almost took over but luckily I took a deep breath which allowed for the peace of the Holy Ghost to enter and answer more articulately then I could have. The problem with his question wasn't that it was over-simplified or incorrect, it's that it was a true and valid question. We may not phrase it that way but do we worship God and follow what He says to become more familiar with His power or to become more powerful?

My answer came out something like "Any person who enters the temple or gains knowledge of God to become his own god will never achieve it anything like it. It takes much more humility than that. We don't go to the temple to become our own gods we go to the temple to learn more about our Father in Heaven who desires, just like a good, caring father on earth, for us to learn and become more like Him. We do believe that we have the potential to become like God, I won't pretend that we don't but it's because of the love that God has for us and that we have for him the motivates us to progress and become like Him."

And then I was done. He appreciated the answer and the clarification and I appreciated the experience. While it seemed like I was answering his question God was actually answering my own. I may always struggle a little bit with the decisions that people make in organized religion and I may never really feel comfortable but I know why it exists. Because God loves us and wants us to be like Him. Lucky for us He's organized a way for that to happen.