Amatonormativity and Temple Marriage

[Anonymous]

This is related so I thought I’d post here rather than a new thread.

I was recently having a conversation with a friend and the subject of testimony and the gospel came up. He had made some sort of mild assertion that everybody in the church had to have a testimony of Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, etc., and if they didn’t why would they be members? I said we can;t really assume that just because someone is active in the church that they actually believe those things. He kind of became argumentative then, but not loudly, I think because it’s difficult for him to wrap his head around the idea that people would want to be members if they didn’t believe. I outed myself a bit, but it wasn’t public and I would never say this in public, and told him I believe the BoM to be a good book which testifies of Jesus Christ and can and does bring people closer to God (I have said that part from the pulpit) but I do not believe there were Lamanites or even gold plates and that the book is really just a set of stories with a moral principle, just like the Bible (I have never said – or will say – any of that from the pulpit). I also told him I don’t I think he was a little stunned, and he tried to make some weak argument about the authenticity of the Bible that I called him out on because I know he doesn’t believe stories like Jonah or Noah’s Ark to be literal. I also asserted that that I think he might be surprised at how many people really have not had a fulfillment of Moroni’s promise and really don’t “know” the BoM is true.

That’s a Reader’s Digest version of what happened but I believe most members are in the same situation as my friend – assuming things about others that aren’t necessarily correct and then not being able to wrap their brains around a different way of looking at things.

[Author]

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