Brian’s Reflection: Friday, June 27, 2008


Truth is Mormonism. God is the author of it.

- Joseph Smith Jr., founder of Mormonism. He
and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob on
this day, 1844, in Carthage IL.


No. Mormanism is not “Truth”. And I doubt that God is the author of it. And I would say the same thing about Christianity. Or any other religion. Now: when I was ordained a priest, I signed an “oath” saying that I believed that the Holy Scriptures were “the word of God and contained all things necessary for salvation”. I do. What that means to me is that (1) if you enter with the mind and heart and spirit into the Bible, you can see the mysterious working of God seeking to reveal Him/Herself, and (2) in the Bible can be found the eternal principles by which human beings can become fully human, especially by seeing that we are not controlled by fear of failure in love or by terror of mortality. In other words, we can find the path to Life.

No one religion or faith or philosophy “has” the Truth. All, I would venture to say, understand part of Truth, and contribute to that understanding in the human community. I really want the bumper sticker I’ve seen that says “Coexist”, where all the letter are symbols of world religions. Come on folks. We’re all on this journey together.

Pride is the great danger of us all. Thinking that we have the full truth and no one else does. Whoever said that Pride goes before a fall was right on the money. Thinking that we do will only lead to division and contempt. So far as I can tell from the Bible, God does not desire division or contempt. God desires unity and compassion and universal brother/sisterhood.

Let’s forget this “I have the Truth” stuff. Let’s offer our bit of the Truth to each other and respect and receive what others have to offer. The Truth is bigger than us all. If we understand even a bit of it in our lifetime, our life will have been worth living.

Brian+