The God I Love

A favorite unofficial* hymn of the Mormon peoples is "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," written by Robert Robinson. The Tabernacle Choir has a stirring rendition of it, complete with the Mack Wilberg Dramatic Key Change (TM). I learned to play it on the guitar when I was serving a mission for the Church. It's a powerful song, and from its lines I took the title.

I've been wondering about the possible plurality of God. With new TV shows like Reza Aslan's Believer and a genuine crisis of religiosity in America, there's certainly a lot to contemplate when it comes to God, eschatology, and behaviors. Since that's too broad a topic for one essay, I'm going to tighten this idea into the possibility that even members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are worshiping a different God from each other. I should also say that the lack of clarity of this essay stems from my own conflicted confusions about what I'm feeling, so I apologize if it's lacking form a little.

God, Defined

I've written before about the questions of liminality within religion and where God's confines are, which I'm revisiting here. Every time there's a definition of God--whether it be His attributes, His actions, or His words--there's a new limit, a boundary. This seems perilous, what with the idea of an omnipotent God. Is God actually omnipotent? I know that asking the question seems tedious, as we've been arguing about theodicy since Socrates at least, but this is part of what I'm struggling with. Every time we make a posit about God ("God is love") then we've collapsed the possibility of the opposite ("God is not love"). It's Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle writ to the largest extent.

Enter my religion, establishing limits on Godhood (not Triune, not bounded by the Good Book, not confined to past declarations) that put God much further from the past and more fully into the person. This, as it were, democratization of God has side effects, including pitfalls, improper piety, and potential perdition. That is, even within the Church there are different levels of imperatives.

For example, a thing that has always been, I suppose, culturally ingrained is that one does not watch television on Sundays. This was a sticky point growing up in my family, with a dad who is an unabashed TVholic. My mum didn't want the children watching any TV at all. We wanted to watch the latest episode of The Simpsons or whatever else was on. In the end, the compromise was that we couldn't watch TV during the day, but once 7 o'clock rolled around, all bets were off. My mother would remain upstairs in silent protest while we kids (and, often, my dad) hooted and laughed and enjoyed the Sunday night programming.

I can't point to a scripture in the LDS canon that would disqualify our behavior, though you could probably spin something to the desired effect. But in terms of commandments of any enumerated variety, you can't find "Thou shalt not watch TV, particularly The Simpsons, on Sunday." 

To this day, Sunday evenings see me parked in front of the television, usually gaming it up after the kids have turned in for the night. I live how I was raised and do so with only the slightest thought about it. 

The question, though, is whether or not I'm a worse Mormon for my behavior. That is, do I love God differently--even better or worse--than those who are television abstainers? 

I could imagine this question being answered this way: "What you do on Sundays and whether or not they draw you closer to God is the most important thing." 

While that's a mighty fine sentiment, it better not be unflinchingly true, because I draw closer to God reading John Milton than breaking my coccyx on those 8th amendment violations we laughingly call chairs for three hours a week. Sundays are often my darkest days, in terms of my depression, and I struggle to feel anything approaching spirituality during most of the day's activities. But I don't believe that reading Paradise Lost for three hours (which, to be perfectly honest, would put me to sleep as quickly as a soporific high councilman talk) is the same--or even spiritually as worthwhile--as attending my weekly meetings. 

Besides, this extends far beyond cultural mores of membership. What about genuinely important things, like not voting in fascism? Advocating for health care to be a right? Guaranteeing that my fellow brothers, sisters, and everything in between live lives free of oppression, worry, and second-class status? In other words, if I believe that God wants me to have compassion for LGBTQA+ people, to love them unconditionally, am I really doing what God wants if His Church has hurtful policies** involving this part of the human family? Who's the better Mormon: Me, who is terrified and traumatized and disgusted that Donald Trump won, or Orrin Hatch, who said of Trump's victory, "I believe Donald Trump has won this election and it’s a miracle. And it’s a miracle hopefully for the benefit of this country, because it needs change." 

This isn't just politics leading in different directions. Hatch and I come from the same background--albeit he probably was baptized sometime around the presidency of Martin Van Buren--at least, inasmuch as we're both lifetime members of the Church. He has more years than I, of course, so he has more experience on this planet than I do, so perhaps it's my Mormonism that's problematic, not his. 

Who is the God I Love?

My instinct is to say that there isn't a convenient, all-choices-please-all kind of God. That doesn't sit well with me. But neither do I feel that I truly understand God. The doctrines of the Church take turns clarifying and obfuscating the picture for me, because there's so much there that I can feel and love and appreciate. By the same token, I worry that my unique conceit of God--what I support and seek after in my readings and studies, what I look for in my interactions with others--is not the one that's real. Is everyone in the same position? Do we all follow a God that we get to through similar paths--religious, philosophical, whatever? Just like how our "hands and feet are all alike" (Matthews) but our fingerprints are unique, am I a Mormon in shape but not in details? Am I capable of claiming salvation if I don't understand whence that salvific grace derives?

I can't tell. I don't know if I have fallen in love with God because I see myself in Him, or if I am, like the singer of the song, "Prone to wander...prone to leave the God I love."

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* It isn't in the English LDS hymnal, and on the Church's website, it's tucked into the "other music" category. I would guess its non-inclusion had more to do with copyright than lack of interest.
** I'm not personally hurt by the policies regarding LGBTQA+ people, but that doesn't mean that these policies aren't hurtful. As Louis C.K. once said, "When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t." Some within the LGBTQA+ community have been injured by the assumptions and expectations within the Church's policy. That's the angle I'm going with here.