LDS Church First Presidency Issues Statement Expressing Condolences In The Wake Of The Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre In Connecticut

The massacre of 28 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, including 20 children and six adults as well as the shooter's mother and the shooter himself, by suicide, has truly touched a raw nerve in America's psyche. Public reaction has been unusually passionate and even visceral at time, with some expressing bitter invective against those who don't want to compound this crime by using it as justification to weaken the right to bear arms in the United States. Perhaps it's the fact that all 20 children were younger than eight years old, considered the age of accountability in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that really hurts; their mortal probation was abruptly cut off even before it really began.

The horrific nature of this crime prompted the First Presidency of the LDS Church to issue the following statement of condolences on Friday December 14th, 2012, even before all of the facts had emerged:

"We are profoundly saddened by the events this morning at a school in Connecticut. We grieve with all those affected by this tragedy and especially for the families of these little children.

"In this hour of great sorrow we pray the Spirit of our Father in Heaven will provide comfort and peace to all."

For those interested in the details of the massacre, I suggest visiting this ABC News portal leading to numerous stories about the event and the aftermath.

While we as Latter-day Saints are just as grieved by the deaths of these young ones, LDS doctrine offers hope for their future. The reason eight years old is set as the age of accountability, the youngest at which one can become baptized into the Church, is because children who die before the age of eight die in the Lord and do not go to hell. They first go to paradise rather than spirit prison, then at the appointed time, will take up their bodies again and qualify for celestial glory, the highest of the three degrees of glory. This is set forth more precisely in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine & Covenants. First, from Moroni 8:8-12 in the Book of Mormon:

8 Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; and the law of circumcision is done away in me.

9 And after this manner did the Holy Ghost manifest the word of God unto me; wherefore, my beloved son, I know that it is solemn mockery before God, that ye should baptize little children.

10 Behold I say unto you that this thing shall ye teach — repentance and baptism unto those who are accountable and capable of committing sin; yea, teach parents that they must repent and be baptized, and humble themselves as their little children, and they shall all be saved with their little children.

11 And their little children need no repentance, neither baptism. Behold, baptism is unto repentance to the fulfilling the commandments unto the remission of sins.

12 But little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world; if not so, God is a partial God, and also a changeable God, and a respecter to persons; for how many little children have died without baptism!

Then, from Doctrine & Covenants 29:46-47:

46 But behold, I say unto you, that little children are redeemed from the foundation of the world through mine Only Begotten;

47 Wherefore, they cannot sin, for power is not given unto Satan to tempt little children, until they begin to become accountable before me;

And finally, Doctrine & Covenants 68:27 defines the age of accountability as eight, stating "And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands". This does not mean that all children will be baptized at the age of eight; it simply means that eight is the youngest age that one can be considered for baptism.

Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue, who are not Mormons, sum it up well in this song:



This perspective is not going to suddenly take away the grief that the families and loved ones feel for the departed children. Grief is a natural part of the overall human experience; there is no prescribed way to grieve. Instead, it provides hope -- and a strategy to better manage and eventually recover from that grief. While no parent ever gets over the death of a child, the objective is to eventually come to terms with it and prevent it from permanently damaging the psyche of the bereaved.

We are not given all the answers to the mysteries of life while we are down here; that would diminish the spontaneity of the mortal experience. But we are given that which our Heavenly Father has deemed sufficient, and we can always access Him via prayer for more wisdom and comfort. Once our lives are complete, we will receive all the rest of the answers when we return to the spirit world, and we will see that these departed children will be entitled to experience everything they would have experienced had they tarried in the flesh -- to include marriage and parenthood. Their mortality may have been cut short, but they have eternity to make up for it.

How Feminism Can Impose Limits Upon The Eternal Perspective Of An LDS Woman

The women who post on The Exponent blog are, by their own admission, feminists. They are faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Commendably, they try to sanitize feminism, and have purged much of the male-bashing element from it.

But feminism still corrupts their eternal perspective to a certain degree. They try to presume how our Heavenly Father might behave based upon their own imperfect and limited mortal perspective. In short, they try to impose limits upon a limitless Father. An example of this is brought out in a post entitled "Will There Be Polygamy In the Next Life? I Think Not". In this post, Caroline suggests that there will be no polygamy in the next life. Of course, since we Mormons believe that only people who qualify for celestial glory with exaltation will have officially-recognized marriages in the next life, we are talking only about the celestial kingdom.

Here's Caroline's justification for her conclusion:

Here’s my logic. God is good. For me, a characteristic of a good God is one who appreciates and acknowledges the fundamental equality of human souls, who values men and women of various races and classes equally and who wants these diverse people to have equal opportunities to lead, inspire, direct, etc. Because polygyny makes women expendable members of the marriage, because it entails a woman being cut out from parts of her husband’s heart and life in a way that hers is not necessarily cut off from his, it is not a system compatible with the principle of equality. Therefore, my logic tells me, polygamy will not exist in the next life.

Here's where her thinking goes astray. Many of our General Authorities have opined that more women will qualify for celestial glory than men. So if this is the case, and there are more women who want eternal marriage than men, how else can we satisfy the desires of all concerned - except through polygamy?

Note that Caroline also plays the equality card. This, of course, reflects secular indoctrination and acculturation; not a day goes by in which we are not subjected to an endless cacaphony of "equality" propaganda. Equality has now been allowed to supersede liberty in so many aspects of American society; one cannot unconditionally hire, fire, rent, or sell to whoever they want any more. So totally consumed has America become in the passioned pursuit of absolute equality that we allowed the civil rights revolution to be hijacked; instead of settling merely for an end to forced segregation, we also imposed forced integration upon society. It was no longer enough merely to stop discriminating on the basis of race (and subsequently sex); it was also required that we engage in positive discrimination against the majority white community through affirmative action to "make up" for the so-called "legacy" of past discrimination. And so it is quite understandable that Caroline would try to impose this flawed, limited perspective of quantitative equality upon the Creator of this universe.

But our Heavenly Father does not limit Himself to quantitative equality. Instead, he considers qualitative equality, meaning equality in value and status. In the LDS Church, Priesthood in reserved only for men. But on the other hand, motherhood is reserved only for women. LDS women who think through a limited mortal perspective only see that men are getting something that the women aren't receiving, while LDS women who think through a more expansive divine perspective will be grateful that they get something that the men cannot have; namely, the ability to carry children to term.

The Lord Jesus Christ illustrated the Father's thinking on this issue during His earthly ministry. In Matthew 20:1-16, the parable of the laborers in the vineyard is set forth. All was well - until the workers who were hired early found out that the workers who were hired later got paid the same amount:

1 For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.
2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
3 And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.
5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.
6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?
7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.
8 So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
9 And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.
10 But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.
11 And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house,
12 Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.
13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?
14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.
15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?
16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

And the householder was absolutely correct - he did the earlier workers no wrong. They agreed to be paid a penny - they didn't specify a condition in which later workers would be paid less. Through our limited mortal perspective of quantitative equality, that seems unfair. But through the Lord's divine perspective of qualitative equality, there was nothing wrong with it.

I suspect that any woman who achieves celestial glory with exaltation will be so overjoyed at the prospect and so totally engulfed in the Holy Spirit that it would not occur to her at that point that polygamy might be "oppressive". It will be much like the description offered in Isaiah 4:1, where it is written "And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name..."