Welcome to questions from the closet. I'm Charlie Bird.
And I'm Ben Schilaty. Each episode we discuss a question that we commonly get asked as LGBTQ Latter-day Saints.
We are not trying to answer this question or come to a consensus, but simply sharing our perspectives.
Today's question is, how do I fit in the plan of salvation?
Ben and I are not terribly diverse and we share many opinions and life experiences. For example, this past Saturday, we spent the afternoon raking leaves for a widow.
However, there are some pretty big differences. For example, I rake leaves for about three hours and you came out for what 20 minutes?
Probably about 20 minutes.
So I started raking and I raked like two leaf fulls. And then a big gust came and blew the leaves farther back than they had come from. And so I was like, I can't do this on my own. So I texted a bunch of people, including you, and you were asleep.
It was 1pm
It was 10 when I texted you. And then I texted a couple friends. My friend Heidi came and saved the day but then you came out for a while I'm just took selfies.
Yeah, I took selfies. I also made a pretty nice leaf pile that I jumped in. I had a good time. They were almost done by the time I got there.
But you were you were actually quite helpful for those 20 minutes.
Thanks. I do what I can.
Thank you, Charlie.
Well, we would like to provide a variety of voices and perspectives on our show. So today we're joined by Terryl Givens.
So tell us a little bit about yourself, Terryl.
Well, I spent most of my professional life as a professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond, Virginia. As a little over a year ago, I relocated here to Utah, which in itself is a considerable miracle. And I'm now a senior Neal A. Maxwell research fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University.
Okay, and what are some of the projects we're working on
I have a book coming out this week that I right now? co-authored with Fiona called "All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation and everything in between" in an attempt to try to create a kind of new religious vocabulary for Latter-day Saints that moves us further away from our Protestant heritage. I have a biography of Gene England that I recently completed, so that'll be coming out next year from UNC press.
Right now I'm working on a kind of revisionist history of Christianity from a Latter-day Saint perspective.
Fun stuff. We'll read all of it. Yeah.
That sounds amazing. Terryl, I gotta say, when I started working with Deseret Book on my book, it was kind of like a sensitive topic. And they gave me a couple authors to look into as examples of someone who are really good at diving into sensitive topics. And you were one of them. So I have a couple of your books, and I read them, they're very good. So wonderful job.
Well, today, we're here to talk about the plan of salvation, and how LGBTQ folks like us fit into the plan of salvation. There's a lot of worry about, you know, how do I fit in if the plan is all about marriage between a man and a woman? How do we, as LGBTQ folks fit in? And there's a lot of worry, and a lot of speculation, we just kind of want to share some perspectives on some thoughts that we've had.
Yeah. And I think well given a little bit of an extra caveat to this episode, in particular, because there's a lot of things that are just speculated about with the plan of salvation in general. And we just want to share some thoughts.
Well, I have had a few thoughts, and many of them run in the direction of thinking that we could have a healthier space for contemplation and conversation about the topic if we would actually clarify how much of our supposed theology is actually speculative theology. In Latter-day Saint tradition, we often aren't careful to separate out what is a kind of
folkloric inheritance. Or, as Gene England himself once said, tragically, and poignantly at the end of his life: "I wish I had known the difference between when the brethren speak and when a brother speaks." There's a lot less that has been said authoritatively on the subject of the family in the eternities. Then we often think.
What are some things that have been said? I've, this is intriguing to me what you're saying?
Well, for example, there are in the early church, there were three different models of how the family itself was constituted in the eternities. One of the problems is that Latter-day Saint thinkers like Joseph Smith and Orson Pratt and Parley Pratt, were trying to find earthly language and counterparts to divine processes, and, and realities. And so they would use different metaphors for talking about the
family in the afterlife. For example, in the King Follett discourse, Joseph Smith was clearly articulating a version of adoption, that God finds himself in the midst of these intelligences. He invites them into eternal relationship with Him. And that's that's what the new and everlasting covenant is. It is the set of conditions and laws and principles by which we become adopted into an eternal
family. And Brigham Young and others frequently pointed out that the law of adoption was the subject of greatest interest and on the minds of the early saints more than any other topic. Parley Pratt use the language of emanation. He thought that our spirits somehow emanated from some primeval core or center or
divine spirit. Orson Pratt, just within months of the prophets death was apparently the first to refer to spirit parturition the notion that Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father actually engender offspring in a way that is analogous to how earthly people have intercourse and produce offspring. So there's a diversity of opinions and Orson Pratt's view kind of won the
day. And so that tends to this present hour to be the prevailing opinion, although there's not an official church pronouncement on the mechanism by which spirit offspring are produced in the worlds to come. And I think in many ways that cuts pretty close to the question that you're dealing with today, which is, what is our role in the plan of salvation? What is the role of heterosexuals versus people of
same sex attraction? I think that we kind of box ourselves in if we make too many assumptions about the way the family is constituted, procreation occurs, or the nature of human relationality in the world to come.
Yeah, what we're saying reminds me of something that that President Oakes said in a few conferences ago about someone worried about polygamy in the next life, he said, there's a lot we don't know, focus on what you do know.
Yeah. And I've been happy to hear President Oaks make that kind of comment a couple of times in relation to different issues, especially touching on sexuality, venturing into speculative theology here. And so I want to clarify it, I'm certainly not claiming any any authority for my ideas, but I'm just trying to open up a larger space for conversation, I think
about some of these ideas. But I think one area, for example that hasn't been explored sufficiently is the role of gender, and the nature of gender as its adumbrated, or at least alluded to in the Proclamation on the Family. I think that there is a rich set of possibilities that are opened up to us by the emphasis of the proclamation on the eternity of gender, not the eternity of sexuality. And I think that there's a huge difference here.
Now, I know I'm fully conversant on contemporary gender theory, and I know that in the academy, it's de rigueur to insist that gender is entirely a social construct. The World Health Organization officially defines gender as a 100% social construct. But the Proclamation on Family says otherwise. Proclamation on Family says that gender is an eternal constituent
of identity. So if you want me to talk a little bit about about that, I'll continue because i think i think that there's some interesting possibilities, repercussions that follow from that differentiation.
Keep expanding Terryl. Teach us teach us your your speculative wisdom.
Well, you know, I think it's interesting that, that conventional theology is consistently defined by many Christian theologians, as that realm of soteriology, or salvation theology that has to do with the span of human existence between the fall of Adam and our resurrection. Now, Latter-day Saint theology is interesting, because it goes far beyond that in both directions. And in so doing, it relocates the essential human identity in both a pre and post mortal
world. And yet all of our paradigms and our assumptions are based on mortal experience. So let me let me be a little bit more concrete about this. I think it's interesting that in the Genesis account of creation, Adam and Eve are not sexual beings, as they are first created. And if we read that through a Latter-day Saint lens would that would suggest is that coming from the pre-existence, Adam and Eve are not sexual beings, they are gendered, but
they aren't sexual. Now, if you press me on what the difference of that is I don't necessarily have a full and convincing explanation. except to say that sexuality is a function of hormones and body chemistry and you know, testosterone and sexual chemistry and attraction. Gender seems to be something
else. It's about femaleness and maleness and I think it's it's clearly seems to be a significant element in the story that it's after the seeds of mortality are introduced to Adam and Eve, that they become sexual beings. Similarly, if we look at the other end of the human timeframe, we anticipate that we will pass through a veil as spiritual entities. Well, one question that I think we don't spend enough time asking ourselves is well, what gets left behind when we shuffle off
this mortal coil? What aspects of our identity are essential and eternal? And what aspects of our identity are merely contingent? I'm not making any declaration, I'm asking a genuine question. In a related way, I think it's significant that the way in which the family itself is organized in the eternities has shifted dramatically in the course of
LDS theology. Right? I think one of the most interesting and certainly earth shattering discourses that was delivered in the history of the church was in October of 1894. It's not even recorded in the journal discourses, but we have other records that indicate that on that occasion, Wilford Woodruff stood up in the tabernacle and he made what I think was one of the most remarkable announcements in the history of the church. He said, effectively, brothers and sisters, I have an announcement
to make. For the last 51 years, we've been doing temple sealing incorrectly. And he used the word "wrong," that what we're doing in the temple struck me is wrong. Wow. We have been sealing children to prophets. So heaven was organized dynastically. It was believed that you had to be sealed into a prophetic line. So you would be sealed to Brigham Young or Joseph Smith or John
Taylor. And it's not till 1894 that Wilford Woodruff says, "Well, you know, Elijah talked about the hearts of the children being turned to the fathers, not the hearts of the children being turned to the prophets." And he said, "The word of the Lord came unto me saying that every child we seal to its parents and every parent to its child. So that's interesting to me for a couple
of reasons. One, because it shows that for 51 years, we had apparently an incorrect model of how the heavenly families are organized. And two, in neither case was the emphasis on how men and women are sealed to each other. But the emphasis was on intergenerational sealing, that we are sealed to our ancestors to our forebears to, to parents
and to children. So there again, it, it seems that those precedents, encourage us to break free from a highly restricted set of expectations about the way in which nuclear families are organized and how they may be. But what I'm saying is we have less historical and theological grounding for those assumptions. And maybe we have thought,
I have a follow up question to that. So what was the response of the church membership to we've been doing sealings wrong?
I think that's a terrific question. And I've tried to find what records I can of specific responses to that specific announcement. And so far, I found a couple. I found one by the prominent journal keeper named Warren Foot, one by another young man of that era, Darius Clement. I have records of both of their responses to that very address. And they're really quite remarkable, because
they both were parallel. They effectively said, "I always felt something was wrong with the way temple sealings were being performed. But I had confidence that if I waited upon the Lord, he would eventually straighten things out. And we'd come into greater alignment with his intention and purposes for the human family." In the aftermath of that talk, Brethren, Apostles and Seventy, alike over the next few years, would would return to that event and comment upon it.
And their comments were always in the nature of, well, Revelation is ongoing. This is a process. Sometimes it's trial and error. Sometimes we hit cul de sacs and dead ends, sometimes we have to reformulate our thinking. We were children in the infancy of the church, and we're continuing to mature. So I think in general, the membership of the church had an incredibly healthy understanding of prophetic revelation, as an
imperfect process. That in the total picture was always taken us in the direction of God's blueprint, so to speak for, for the church, and the human family. But there was a sense that mistakes could be made along the way. And there's a human element that is there, and we just have to be patient.
So Terryl, what I'm hearing you say is, there's a lot we don't know, and God isn't done talking to us about the plan of salvation, or what the nature of eternity looks like. When I have said similar things in the future, or in the past, people will say things like, well, you're saying that there's going to be gay marriage. And what I say is, you know, I don't know what is going to happen, but I know that the Lord isn't done talking to us about His plan for his children.
Yeah, well, I think that's a healthy and realistic posture to assume. I don't have any expectation or anticipations either I just think that the Lord is capable of always surprising us in delightful, unexpected ways. That's, I think, a healthy sign of the church that takes continuing revelation serious.
Well, and even that reminds me of Dieter F. Uchtdorf's most recent conference address where he said, "The Lord will surprise us in unexpected ways." You know, that's just kind of what happens. I want to talk to this idea real quick of sometimes we are limited by through our mortal eyes. We limit our view of the entire plan of salvation, and we don't look at the the pre mortal and the post mortal life. And I feel like that's a way that I've boxed myself in, as I consider like my own spirit, on
this continuum. And on this, like this journey, the plan of happiness, I think like congruence and belonging, and fit is one of the biggest worries, and it's for gay people, for LGBTQ people. And it's usually based on what's going to happen after death. Like, Will I still be gay? Will I be part of my family? What happens? Like there's so many
questions there. And I've had the sense a lot that like, I don't really fit into the plan of salvation, the way it's described to me, currently, like when I go to church, Sunday school, things like that. I think it's, it's been really healthy for me to remember that this isn't the beginning, I've actually existed for a really
long time. If I believe in the pre-existence and the premortal life, then my spirit has been gaining experience and knowledge and character for, I don't know, like, what even is time, you know? And that I came into the earth as a being already. And so I have been fitting in the plan of salvation. Ever since I was my inception, you know. And I remember the first time, I really prayed about my orientation to figure out what
it was. And it's kind of like you were saying earlier, what parts of me are eternal and real, and will stay with me? And what parts won't? I started asking God those questions, really believing for the first time that I could get answers. I don't want to share all of that, because some of it's pretty personal. But as I was saying, this prayer, I had a very, very strong impression, that in the premortal existence, this aspect of me was somehow part of my
spirit. I didn't really understand what that looked like. And you were saying that, in your view of Adam and Eve, sexuality came in mortal life. But I've always believed and just felt that this aspect of me being gay is so much more than sex. There, there are components like relational components, attraction in my worldview, go so much deeper than sex. And I felt strongly that that has always been a part of my spirit, and was part of the way that I was lovingly created by Heavenly
Father. As that being, I was given a body and brought to Earth. To me that knowledge and in that, that testimony, I have it that who I am, was created and intentional, and was able to pass through stage one of the plan salvation gives me hope that I, as this same being that's now had more experiences and kind of been able to work through things a little bit differently, will be able to continue and find place, the right place as an eternal being.
It makes sense to suggest that a third of our identity is eternal, from our eternal past. A third is an inheritance from our parents, and a third is shaped by our social environment. So, but we can't sort that out. I can't look into a mirror and say, "Okay, I think this aspect of me probably is just completely contingent on my parents, and it's not really a part of who I am eternally." We have no way of knowing that we can't sort out those threads, those filaments
of our identity. All I'm suggesting is that it would be wrong to project the central role that sexual attraction has in this life into an eternal role. And yes, I readily recognize I wouldn't, for a moment want to reduce gay identity to sexual attraction. I know that involves much more than that. But there's no question that that figures prominently, right? In the anxieties and worries and challenges of what it means to be gay. Is what what do I do with a sexual attraction?
Right, especially withinthe context of marriage and temple marriage?
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I would say that as a heterosexual, I don't expect to experience my sexuality, in the same way in the world to come. I hope that I don't have to fight the same kinds of proclivities and lusts of the flesh, on the other side of the veil that are incident to the to the mortal condition that I have it now. So I have to believe that human relationality will be experienced differently. I mean, there'll be a lot that
carries over. But I don't think that everything will and I think there will be new dimensions and new aspects when our minds and spirits are clarified of the impediments of our Darwinian fleshly inheritance. And I think that's why The Gospel of John and the Book of Mormon talk about "knowing as we are known" in a new way, I think that that a different kind of self will be revealed and it will be
beautiful and glorious. But I just I want to make one other comment that I think expands upon the insight that you gained. I think it's it's a one of the great misfortunes of Latter-day Saint -ism's place in the world, that we have a reputation for being elitist or exclusionary, when in actual fact, there's no question that Latter-day Saints theology is the most encompassing, embracing Universalist theology in the
history of Christian thought. I mean, Joseph Smith was convinced that every single human spirit would eventually find a place in the eternal family. And that's absolutely central in core to my understanding of what it means to be a Latter-day Saint. So it's not imaginable or thinkable in any sense of the word that anybody is going to find themselves on the peripheries of that heavenly family.
As you've been talking Terryl, I've been thinking, and as Charlie spoke, I was thinking about this time of my life in my 20s, when I thought, okay, something has to change, either my orientation has to change, or, or the church has to change, like, those are the two options, something's got to change for me to have a good eternity. And I felt really trapped. Like you say that the gospel is expansive, and includes everyone. But that wasn't something that I could really
see. And it wasn't until I kind of got out of feeling trapped and started exploring and really thinking about, well, "How do I fit into the plan?" that things really started to open up and I felt like I was able to find my place. Like I remember once hearing a church leader say that, that there are no homosexuals in the church, because we're all children of God. And and then he said it. He said, "If you don't get married, the plan is halted for you."
Those are the exact words we don't get married, the plan is halted for you. And I was......
devastated?
Yeah, that's the right word. Yeah. And some of the I remember in general conference, hearing, hearing an apostle say that that the end of all activity in the church, is that a man, his wife, and their children are happy at home. I said, "Well, I don't have a wife
or children. So what's the point of the church for someone like me?" And so what I did was I mentioned this on a previous episode, but I pulled out my Preach My Gospel, and in Preach My Gospel there's in chapter two about the plan of salvation, there's a whole list of, of chapters about the plan. And as I read about it, you know, I thought I found it well, in the Book of Mormon contains the fullness of the plan of
salvation. And so as I read about that, it said, It called it the plan of happiness, and the plan of redemption. And as I read all those chapters, I found that they weren't really about marriage. They were about my relationship with God, developing the attributes of the Savior and building Zion along the way. As I, as I read that I found, well I do fit in this, like, this plan is all about me. And as I, as I started to realize, well, what is the plan
of salvation for Ben Schilaty? I found that all the ways I felt trapped, weren't the ways I was supposed to be living. And I felt guided to a different life that has been really wonderful for me.
Yeah. And you know, that goes back to the key that the center of the plan of salvation being the Atonement of Jesus Christ. If we really believe that Christ's atonement is all encompassing, and personal, worrying about the future, and what's going to happen to our souls, it doesn't really matter, because what we're really supposed to be doing now is learning how to develop faith in Jesus Christ. Like what if we reframed and looked at the plan of salvation as accessing the atonement of
Jesus Christ? For an LGBTQ person, there's not really like a guidebook or like a pattern to follow. But we do have a Savior who knows us perfectly. And if we understood better that repentance isn't so much about restitution as it is learning, and that we have agency, we can honor that agency, and we can move and make decisions and recalibrate and switch what we're doing and try to figure out where we're supposed to fit.
Then, on top of that, it's just faith that like, as we grow closer to Christ, that that is our plan of salvation, we will find our fit.
It seems to me that at this moment in our cultural evolution and theological evolution, that being gay may be the the greatest, most dramatic instance of the challenge of Zion building. But that's always been the central challenge, right? Is how do we make the church truly inclusive, so that we emulate the city of Enoch, or the Zion of a 4th Nephi? Yeah. So it seems to me that there's there's always some group that is ostracized, marginalized, devalued. I think, in many ways,
right? There's a clear analogy between the position of LGBT people today and the position of blacks in the church pre 1978, who were asking the exact same questions right? What is life?
It is our turn to carry the torch?
Exactly. And that's why it's it seems to me that the best attitude going forward is just to be cognizant of how variable and shifting our understanding of the family has been. I mean, we've gone as I said, from polygamy to dynastic to monogamous nuclear, and, you know, who knows where we will end up eventually?
I think that's exactly right. And, you know, we talked about, you know, we don't know what's gonna happen in the future, like, we don't know what God has yet to teach us. And, and I think it's really fun and beautiful to think about, like the expanses of God and how He has for us to fit in. And yet, there are so many people like, like right now who just feel so excluded from the plan. And I've been thinking about, you know, like, what message would I want to give to someone who right now
feels excluded? And we can talk about well, we don't know a lot about the next life and, and I know that there were times when that wouldn't have been comforting to me. To know that I like now I feel I feel okay and settled about that. But I remember when I, when I was in living in Tucson, my last semester of graduate school there, I had a group of LGBTQ Latter-day Saints that we met together regularly. And I said, I want to read the Book of
Mormon, my last semester. I invite everyone to read with me. And, like 10 people wanted to do it. And we made a reading chart with stickers and we read five pages a day, then we'd get together once or twice a week to discuss our reading. And for the first time, I was reading the Book of Mormon, with like a queer lens, like, like, what is it? And we called it the queer
Book of Mormon study. And for the first time, like, read the Book of Mormon as a gay person, and I remember just like, reading about Ammon and thinking is Ammon gay? because....
He he turned down the princess...
I know the king's like, the king's like, "Marry, the princess." He's like, "Nevermind."
I'll go shovel, shovel horse manure.
And, and I'm not saying that he was, like, we know very little about his personal life, but there was no record of him getting married. And he was like, he did this amazing thing, and was part of the conversion of these people that ended up saving his nation. And I remember thinking, if someone who had never mentioned their marriage can do that much good, you know, how much good can Ben Schilaty do in the world? And, and that really gave me hope for like how I can live life now.
And, and you know, how I can be an instrument in God's hands. And so, you know, my questions stopped being like, "Well, what, what kind of marriage relationship am I going to have the next life?" to "How am I going to build Zion now?" What like you were saying, and that can still be a scary proposition, because we have, you know, not only culture and doctrine that that teaches us to want to be part of an eternal family also just like a natural impulse to be part of a family.
But that was something really important to me, just seeing, just reading the Book of Mormon through like, like the lens of my life as a gay person seeing ways in the Book of Mormon, that I could do God's work.
Yeah, Ben, I cannot echo that enough. The first time I read the Book of Mormon through gay eyes, I was shocked at what I learned about myself and who I am and who I want to be and what I feel like I should become. Like, try, really try to read it without the parameters and the barriers and the horse blinders of culture, and just say, "What do I glean from this as me?" And I think you'll be really surprised. I'm thinking
about this, too. You said that this idea of like, Oh, yeah, "Well, we don't know a lot," isn't very comforting. I was trying to think of what I would say to someone who, who maybe feels like they're a wrench in the plan, you know, I think I would say, I don't really believe that there are wrenches in the plan. But if you are a wrench in the plan, a wrench is useful. And like there's a place for you like, like that we need everyone. And we need diverse perspectives and different
people. And I feel very strongly that we're created in the image of God. And so as we get to know one another, like, collectively, we represent God. And if we don't have you, there's a piece of God that we're not going to get to know. And I believe that God wants you with Him.
There's just one reflection I have on what you said, is that you saw your plight as an LGBT, unhappy Latter-day Saint as your responsibility to work through and you found a way to do that. But I think it's important to point out that to the extent that LGBT people don't feel comfortable or happy in the church, that's also an indictment of the membership. Right?
Thank you.
Because the membership has failed to create the environment. I mean, I mentioned that I'm working on a history of of Christianity right now. I for months, I've been immersed, immersed in every source I can find that addresses
What was the most distinctive feature of early Christianity? What made it stand out? What what drew the wrath and ire of the persecutors? And what was the catalyst that created this church of unprecedented growth and appeal? And there's no there's no controversy among the scholars of early Christianity. It was the universality of the love that these early Christian disciples manifested for one another. There was no precedent for that in the ancient world.
They created an environment in which everybody felt part in the link of an extended family. And it seems that we're we're clearl a long way from that if we sti l have people that are experie cing racism in the church an homophobia in the churc and all other kinds of feelings of exclusion and non-belon ing. So the responsibility work on both sides.
You know, it's interesting, as you've been talking, I've been doing the Come Follow Me reading this year and reading the Book of Mormon. And there are a number of times where it talks about the way that church members are hindering the progress of the church. Yeah. Like it wasn't because the church wasn't true, or because the doctrine wasn't true. But the way the church members weren't just weren't ready. Yeah. And it makes me think like, like today, or the way we're treating people that are
hindering the work of God. And I think the answer, I think, yes, I think it is.
I'd like to think just as an observer and commentator on Mormon history, I'd like to think that there's discernible progress that's been made in the last generation. I would, I would hope that you would see and feel that.
I think the fact that we're sitting here having this conversation with two active gay church members proves that. I don't know. Like, I feel this stuff happening more and more, you know,
And the fact that I work as an openly gay Honor Code Administrator at BYU, like, that couldn't have happened a generation ago. Couldn't have been ten years ago. Yeah. Yeah, we're definitely making progress.
You know, I'm thinking I just want to, I don't know, I hope this doesn't sound like irreverent or inappropriate. But I've had people suggest to me that I will most likely be a Ministering Angel in the eternities. And I'm like, Okay, thanks. They're like, you won't make exaltation, but you'll be happy as a ministering Angel. And I was thinking about that one day, and I was like, What would life look like? If that's true? Like, if I really do end up being a ministering Angel?
And I was like, I'm gonna love it, because I'm gonna get to travel. And if like, people are really building their little worlds, I'm gonna be like, like a design consultant for different worlds. And I come over, I'm like, uh uh, no, this tree is all wrong, like you need to move it over there,and this canyon needs to be moved. And I'm just like, I don't know, as I was thinking about it, it was kind of ridiculous. Just, you know, imagining this, but...
Lemonade out of bad theological lemons.
Yeah, exactly. But I was like, You know what, no matter what happens, I'm gonna be me. And I'm gonna have fun. And I believe that God loves me and that I'm gonna be happy. And if it's as an angel, that's great. Because like, I don't want a wife. Like, like I would, if it has to come down between like, forever wife companion versus traveling consultant, I'm gonna go with traveling consultant every single time. So, so yeah, there's this... I don't know... take it with a grain of salt.
Yeah, and even this, Charlie is this truth that like, God hasn't prepared a heaven for us that we're gonna be disappointed in.
Exactly,
That we're gonna be unhappy. And if it ends up that you and I are ministering angels, I won't be a design consultant cuz that'd be a disaster.
He's not a design game. You can rake all the leaves and I'll take pictures.
But I am basically a ministering angel now. It's a fine life. So yeah, it's a great life. Yeah, Terryl, can I ask you a very speculative question?
Even more speculative?
Really? Ooh.
So in D & C 131. It says that in the celestial kingdom, there are three heavens or degrees in order to obtain highest, you need to be in the, you need to enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. I think it says "this order of the priesthood," meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. Why do you think there are three degrees in the celestial kingdom?
Well, I don't know. I mean, it's in some ways, it's kind of comical, that preface to Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants where Joseph says, it just didn't make sense that there were only two divisions, right? Heaven and hell. So we'll have three! That's any, it's not really an improvement. And then we subdivide one of the three into three more. I don't know, I think that what it's really pointing toward is an infinitude of degrees and stations and levels, all of which I believe
we progress through. Joseph clearly taught, I think it's, I think it's implicit in section--correct me if I'm wrong, it 137? In Section 76, he gets, he gets this explication of The Three Degrees Of Glory. He's been so distraught over the death of his brother, Alvin. Where's Alvin going to end up? He wasn't baptized. And then he learns from section 76, the good and honorable men who die without a knowledge of Christ inherit the
terrestrial kingdom. I believe that gave Joseph Smith great comfort his brother album would be a terrestrial Angel. And then would happens? But five or six years later, he gets section 137 a vision of the celestial kingdom and what's the language? Right? I was amazed. Why? Because he sees Alvin in the celestial kingdom. I can't read that any other way than Joseph has discovered that everything
is fluid. Yeah. And his brother Hyrum was recorded as saying The Degrees Of Glory are like the moon, they wax and they wane. There's endless fluidity and progress and movement. So I just think it's an exciting prospect that the gospel holds out that nobody is ever locked into one
position. One of my favorite talks I've ever heard was that might have been the last sermon that Elder David B. Haight gave before he died, when he spoke to the parents, the church, and he said, "Please, never never never lock the doors of your heart to your children." Well, then we can hardly believe in a God who had ever locked the door of his heart to any of us now or hereafter.
We talked, we were talking about section 137, I thought, how amazed we would be if we could see Heaven, who would be there. And you know, maybe we lock ourselves out and don't see the possibilities that God has for us.
Yeah. That's so beautiful. And I believe that. I love listening to you say that. One of my favorite themes of the gospel and of God is eternal progression. And I think if we limit our view of eternal progression... I think so often, we look at the plan of salvation as linear, when really, we should be looking more spherical. And I don't know if that makes sense. But like, it makes sense in my mind that we're just looking at this flatline as if it's, oh, it was and it will be, but it
encompasses so much more. It's so much grander and fuller than that. So as we're talking about this, I'm thinking about the way I used to teach the plan of salvation as a missionary and I, I got into this like kind of groove where I would just draw it out. I get a piece of paper, and I love to draw and like I draw, like, cute little veil and the premortal life and, and go through and draw The Three Degrees Of Glory. Looking back now, what I was drawing isn't actually like described in the
scriptures really. And like, the way we view the plan of salvation, is sometimes limited by the way we view the plan of salvation. Right?
Yeah, well, true to form, Charlie, the way you drew the plan of salvation, is much more extra than me, I just drew lines and circles on a chalkboard.
But like, if we're viewing it through this cultural lens, or this, like when you teach a kid that you teach about black and white, and good and bad, and yes and no. And like this idea of spectrum, is, is lost there. But it like plants, that seed of 1-2-3, to show that there's a spectrum like there, there is a range. And there's like, I guess, like Terryl, you were just saying fluidity there.
You know, I think what you're saying is true. Like I remember, as I studied the plan of salvation, as taught in the Book of Mormon, you know, there was no chapter where it started with the pre-Earth life, and then the veil of forgetfulness, and then mortal life. And you know, there's nothing that walks you through all of those steps. But there were chapters about the plan of salvation that talked about agency, and the
importance of agency. And then chapters that talked about redemption through Jesus Christ and chapters that talks about, you know, faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost and all those important things. But the way that I drew lines on a chalkboard in circles like that, that's not spelled out in there. I think that's, that's found in like chapter one
of the handbook. But in the Scriptures, the plan of salvation is taught as you know, there's, there's, you know, this principle and this principle and this principle that to bring us back to God. Terryl, can I quote you?
Yeah.
So, you gave a lecture series at BYU last fall that I went to, and during the q&a, someone asked you if you thought that there was progression in the eternities, and and one of the things you said was, "I believe in a God that gives everyone who wants to progress, the chance to" You said something like that. You could say it now, if you want to it's better than that. But I just remember being so struck by
that, because that is true. Like that is the God I believe in, the God who gives everyone who wants to progress, the chance to do so. And as I thought about my own life, I thought, you know, right now, I really don't feel called to be in, to be married. I don't feel that. And yet I want to progress and I want to be better. And God opens up these opportunities for me to do that within the spirit he has placed me.
Yeah, and I think adding to that it'll, it looks different in different stages of life and for different people. And so...
The beauty of your testimony is that you have enough reliance on past experience, to anticipate that is a pattern for your own future.
Well, and I just want to say, you know, Terryl, thank you so much for for sharing your time with us. And for your expertise. You used a number of words I've never heard of. Like the word for the study of salvation, I don't even know what was that word?
Soteriology.
Yes, I've never heard of ...
Pull out a dictionary.Maybe in the show notes. I'll just add like a glossary, a terminology section.
I actually really wish that would have used the word "esoteric." I looked it up and it was like, "understood only by a few." I was like, well, that's ironic. So anyway, but Terryl, thank you so much for your time and for your expertise. And we've talked a lot, we've speculated a lot. We've talked about things we know and things that you know, we don't know and, and, you know, none of us have any idea what God has in store for us. And I think it'd be inappropriate for us to say
what God will do. I think it's also equally inappropriate to say what God won't do. And and to trust that, that that, you know, we're not the experts on this God is and as we turned to him, he'll teach us.
I agree. And Nephi, in the Book of Mormon right towards the beginning says, You know, "I don't know everything but I do know that God loves his children." And that's, that's what we go off of.
Yeah, I'm excited to see what God reveals through through the prophets and apostles in generations to come.
I agree, I think the most profound realization of Joseph Smith was that no matter how great we think God's love is, we've underestimated.
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