Families can be Forever

One of the biggest selling points of the Mormon religion is their belief that families can be forever.  This has been a frequent theme of their many ad campaigns and is featured in their proselytizing approach.  A closer examination of Mormon belief reveals a surprising twist where the deeper implied meaning of this slogan is far different from the surface meaning.

Nearly every religion that believes in an afterlife believes that social relationships will continue in the next life.  This includes relationships with family members.  When Mormons say that families are forever, they are not offering anything that other religious people do not already believe.  What they are really saying is that only Mormon families will be together forever.  According to Mormon doctrine, you have to be married in a Mormon temple to have your family with you forever.  In other words, the Mormon slogan actually declares that the vast majority of families will not be together forever.

Forever families can only be created in Mormon temples sealed by the Mormon priesthood, and this comes at a high cost.  You must first become a Mormon if you are not already one.  Then you must pass a temple recommend interview in order to qualify to enter the temple.  Among other things, this requires that you give 10 percent of your gross income (before taxes) to the Mormon church.  Depending on your tax bracket and paycheck deductions, this can in practice be as much as 40 percent of your take-home pay.

This is not all you will be expected to donate.  Once a month Mormons refrain from eating for 24 hours and donate the money they saved to the church.  In actual practice, church leaders counsel members to be generous and donate many times the actual cost of the food not eaten.  I actually think that this is a great idea because this money can be used at the discretion of the local bishop to help the needy in his own congregation and only the excess is sent to church headquarters, but the members are already giving 10 percent of their income, which goes directly to the central, corporate church.

Other requirements for entering a Mormon temple to make your family last forever include refraining from consumption of tobacco, alcohol, coffee, and tea.  Refraining from smoking tobacco is a good idea for a health conscious individual, and excessive alcohol consumption can have both health and social consequences.  However, moderate and responsible consumption of alcohol, coffee and tea have known health benefits.  The proscription of these items seems like a completely arbitrary obedience test rather than something that actually benefits anyone at all.

The financial costs and the following of arbitrary rules are only the beginning.  The Mormon church also requires a significant time investment.  Mormons attend three hours of church on Sunday with additional meetings occurring during the week that vary depending on a member's age, gender, and role.  Each member has one or more jobs, which they refer to as callings.  These are not voluntary.  Members are appointed to these callings and are expected to never refuse or resign from them.  A conscientious Mormon can easily spend 20 hour per week on church related activities and even more for those in leadership positions.  The church does not pay local leaders so all this time is in addition to their regular careers.  Ironically, meeting all the requirements of having your family forever means that you will have very little time for them now.

Even after meeting all the requirements to go to the temple and being sealed by the authority of the Mormon priesthood, there is still no guarantee that your family will be forever.  My "eternal marriage" lasted 19 years, and then it ended, against my wishes at the time.  Here is concrete evidence that, despite promises, some Mormon marriages fall quite short of the forever promise.  This is true for many Mormon marriages.  The divorce rate among Mormons is just as high as in the general population.  Mormons point to a divorce rate among Mormons married in the temple as low as 6 percent, but this article explains why this claim is very misleading.  The discrepancy is likely because not all divorced Mormon couples bother to have their temple sealing cancelled.

My divorce was supported and even encouraged by the local bishop.  This was not because there was any abuse or neglect of any kind, or because I no longer wanted to attend church.  I continued to attend church, support my family, and was kind and loving toward them.  It was simply because I did not believe that the Book of Mormon represents the record of an actual, historical people who lived in ancient America, a belief that I kept private until my ex insisted that I tell the bishop.  The evidence against this Mormon claim is so overwhelming that even the main offshoot of the Mormon Church, the Community of Christ, no longer requires its members to believe it.  My family was broken up because of a private belief of mine that is overwhelmingly supported by evidence.  See this blog for more details.

The Mormon proclamation that families can be forever is one of the many items that John Larsen, the creator of the Mormon Expression podcast, was referring to when he said, "The Mormon church takes away something you already have and then sells it back to you."  The Mormon church sells it back at a very high cost and then snatches it away if you get out of line.  The real Mormon belief is that very few families will get to be together forever because they will not do things just right.  This is very much a case where "Caveat Emptor" applies.  In the words of Paul Harvey, "Now you know the rest of the story."