Peter John,
I’m not going to elaborate, … There is a difference between being forgiven on the one hand and the leaders being careful and vigilant with respect to their youth and young adults, particularly in today’s world, on the other hand.
As far as repentance and forgiveness, here is a link to a great article by President Uchtdorf on the subject:
Wishing you peace and the Savior’s healing power, as it seems you have come to know.
I don’t need to read the article. There is nothing you can tell me about the LDS ecclesiastical justice system I do not know first hand. Unless it says anything inconsistent with “The Miracle of Forgiveness” by Spencer W. Kimball, my experience gives me no reason to trust it.
I am talking of things that happened decades ago. I reemphasize – I was never caught doing anything. I chose to confess out of my own conscience. I read everything I could about the process of Church Courts, before I went to a Church leader to confess (only necessary for what Catholics call mortal sins in Mormonism) at the age of 17. It all promised forgiveness of the Church, and even used the words “I the Lord will remember them no more.” It all promised, as did the men to whom I had to confess, that I would be able to put it all behind me.
So first it was a surprise several years later to learn that wherever I went the rest of my life anyone who needed to use that roster would know that at some time in the past I had done something serious enough to merit excommunication, because I had been rebaptized. Any one of these people might be just any other member of the church when callings were switched out, and someone else appointed to their position.
Then when I put in my mission paperwork I was required to be interviewed by a general authority. My stake president was new and did not know the circumstances for my earlier excommunication, so he asked about it before passing the appointment back to Salt Lake. So – not having committed any new sin that would qualify as needing confession under Mormonism, I once again had to tell a Church authority about something which I had been promised I could leave behind me. Then when I went for my interview with Rex C. Reeves, he asked about it too.
So, though it did not keep me from serving my mission honorably, I went off knowing that despite the promises made to me the Church would always subject me to extra scrutiny.
That is not forgiveness of the Church. Always in my face is not behind me.
A lot happened between then and the first time I confessed to a Catholic priest in 2007. I had once again confessed my way into excommunication, then spent 10 years reassessing my value system from scratch before even accepting Christianity, and came full circle back to considering Mormonism,a couple of years after that. I thought that was it, and had sought nothing else. Because of Mormonism’s bizarre rules regarding confession I had probably had to confess – even things I had not done for decades – to at least two dozen LDS officials, none of whom had authority to readmit me into the Church – all of whom became or would become just regular members of the congregation.
Every time a Bishop or Stake President got swapped out, I had to tell them all about it again as they assessed when I could move on to the next step. The sins that kept me from moving on would not have hindered my church activity as a normal member.
But, I believed these were God’s own representatives over me, as I had been taught, and I would not lie to them, and I would not hide anything from them. It did not matter how many times I confessed, I still felt guilty about sins that had not been issues for decades.
The first time I confessed to a Catholic priest, in the words of your Enos, “my guilt was swept away”. I still bear responsibility for some very terrible actions, but I have not felt guilty since, and not feeling guilty about my past failings has allowed me to better amend my behavior than I ever could with it continually thrown in my face.
– and I had not even been baptized Catholic yet at that confession, though I was formally in catachesis.
Zachariah sang true that knowledge of our salvation comes “by the forgiveness of our sins”.
My experience is that Mormonism does not forgive. You confess something serious, and you can get your face rubbed in it the rest of your life, however well you behave. Then after having your face rubbed in it so long you doubt your forgiveness over something that has not even been an issue, commission of later sins gets shown as proof of the need for caution which concerns you so.
Mormons who commit mortal sins are better off keeping it to themselves for years, until they have a few decades of good behavior behind them and a couple of kids on missions, then confess what they did so long ago and have been hiding. When it is less immediate it is deemed less serious. What good they have done during decades of hypocrisy matters more than the original sin or than the attendant hypocrisy. Personally, from the age of 17 on I could not live a lie.
I did not find that the promises made in"The Miracle of Forgiveness" carried through, or those made by formal Church officials. But I should have expected that, since “The Miracle of Forgiveness” emphasizes that the Prodigal Son had already spent his inheritance and could not expect all that the faithful son would have. Self-identified serious sinners in Mormonism are second class citizens in my experience.
Jesus does not give up on the hard cases. In my expereince and observation, Mormonism does. The Good Shepherd does not say, “That sheep has wandered too far to reach.”
